Our Privacy Policy

How we use your medical records

This team handles medical records according to the laws on data protection and confidentiality.
We share medical records with health professionals who are involved in providing you with care and treatment. This is on a need to know basis and event by event.
Some of your data is automatically copied to the Shared Care Summary Record
We do share some of your data with local out of hours/urgent or emergency care service
Data about you is used to manage national screening campaigns such as flu, cervical cytology and diabetes prevention.
Data about you, usually de-identified, is used to manage the NHS and make payments.
We share information when the law requires us to do so, for instance when we are inspected or reporting certain illnesses or safeguarding vulnerable people.
Your data is used to check the quality of care provided by the NHS.
We may also share medical records for medical research.

How the NHS and care services use your information

Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.

The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:

improving the quality and standards of care provided
research into the development of new treatments
preventing illness and diseases
monitoring safety
planning services

This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.

Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.

You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care.

To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters.

On this web page you will:

See what is meant by confidential patient information
Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
Understand more about who uses the data
Find out how your data is protected
Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
See the situations where the opt-out will not apply

You can also find out more about how patient information is used at:

www.hra.nhs.uk/information-about-patients (which covers health and care research); and

understandingpatientdata.org.uk/what-you-need-know (which covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made).

You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.

Health and care organisations have until 2020 to put systems and processes in place so they can be compliant with the national data opt-out and apply your choice to any confidential patient information they use or share for purposes beyond your individual care. Our organisation is compliant with the national data opt-out policy.

Website terms of use

The information, materials and opinions on this website are for general information purposes only. They are not intended to constitute legal or other professional advice and should not be relied on or treated as a substitute for specific advice relevant to particular circumstances.

Certain parts of this website link to other external internet sites and other external internal sites may link to this website. The practice does not accept responsibility for the content of any of these external internet sites. Further, the practice is not responsible for the direct or indirect consequences of you linking to these external websites.

Although we try to make sure that the content of this website is accurate and up to date, the practice makes no express or implied conditions, warranties, terms or representations about the content of this website and accepts no liability whatsoever for the use which you make information, except as may be required by law.

Privacy statement

The practice wants to protect the privacy of visitors to our website. Please read the following policy to understand how we use your personal data. We may change our privacy policy at any time, so please check it each time you visit our website.

If you have any questions about this statement or your personal information, please contact us at Burnley West Health and Wellbeing Team, Empire Business Centre, Empire Way, Burnley, BB12 6HH.

Information collection and use via email

To the extent permitted by law, we may monitor electronic communications for the purposes of ensuring compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations and internal policies.

Information collection and use through our website

You do not have to give us any personal information in order to use most of this website.

The team is the sole owner of the information collected on this website. We do not sell, share or transfer this information, except as set out in this statement. We use your information to improve our marketing, for administration and to provide legal services.

The types of information we collect through our website are described below. By using our website you consent to the collection and use of any personal information in the manner described.

A cookie is a piece of data stored on a user's hard drive containing information about the user. The information below explains the cookies we use on our website and why we use them:

Google Analytics cookies: we use these cookies to collect information about how visitors use our website, including details of the site where the visitor has come from and the total number of times a visitor has been to our website. we use the information to improve our website and enhance the experience of its visitors.
ASP.Net cookie: we use these cookie to allow visitors to view the website without logging in as registered user. Once you close your browser, the cookie is deactivated.

You can enable or disable cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. You can find out how to do this, and find more information on cookies, at www.allaboutcookies.org

IP addresses

We use IP addresses to analyse trends, administer the website, track users' movements, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Links

This website contains links to other websites. Please note that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.

Security

We take all appropriate steps to protect your information both online and offline. If you would like more information on our security procedures please contact us.

If you:

would like to access the personal information we hold about you;
believe that information we hold about you is incorrect; or
have any questions in relation to the information concerning privacy and personal information;

then we ask that you contact us via email to bwpcn@nhs.net and we will take reasonable steps to resolve these concerns as soon as practicable. In some cases we may not be able to give you access to personal information we hold regarding you if making such a disclosure would breach our legal obligations to our client or if prevented by any applicable law or regulation.