GDPR

Data Protection

The Practice is registered with the Information Commissioners Office under the Data Protection Act 2018.

When you register, you will be asked for information about yourself so that you can receive the appropriate care and treatment. This information is kept with details of your health and treatment provided, so that the practice can ensure that the care you receive is appropriate and consistent with your medical history.

The practice may pass information to other organisations and strict conditions must be complied with before information is released.

Read our FAQ about how and why we use your information confidentially for risk stratification.

Patient Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an absolute right and patients can be assured of confidentiality at all times. Patients will have access to their medical records, subject to any limitations in the law. The practice keeps up-to-date health records to give you the best possible care. This information may be used for management and audit purposes. However it is usually only available to, and used by, those involved in your care.

Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act creates a right of access to recorded information and obliges a public authority to:

Have a publication scheme in place
Allow public access to information held by public authorities.

The Act covers any recorded organisational information such as reports, policies or strategies, that is held by a public authority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and by UK-wide public authorities based in Scotland, however it does not cover personal information such as patient records which are covered by the Data Protection Act.

Public authorities include government departments, local authorities, the NHS, state schools and police forces.

The Act is enforced by the Information Commissioner who regulates both the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.

The Surgery publication scheme

A publication scheme requires an authority to make information available to the public as part of its normal business activities. The scheme lists information under seven broad classes, which are:

who we are and what we do
what we spend and how we spend it
what our priorities are and how we are doing it
how we make decisions
our policies and procedures
lists and registers
the services we offer

Who can request information?

Under the Act, any individual, anywhere in the world, is able to make a request to a practice for information. An applicant is entitled to be informed in writing, by the practice, whether the practice holds information of the description specified in the request and if that is the case, have the information communicated to him. An individual can request information, regardless of whether he/she is the subject of the information or affected by its use.

How should requests be made?

Requests must:

be made in writing (this can be electronically e.g. email/fax)
state the name of the applicant and an address for correspondence
describe the information requested.

What cannot be requested?

Personal data about staff and patients covered under Data Protection Act.

For more information see these websites:

Recruitment Privacy Notice

Data controller: Humberstone Medical Centre

Data protection officer: – Dr Mohammed Islam (mohammed.islam68@nhs.net)

As part of any recruitment process, the practice collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants and is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data in line with data protection legislation.

What information does the practice collect?

The practice collects a range of information about you. This includes:

[your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
whether or not you have a disability for which the practice needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief;

The practice collects this information in a variety of ways, such as:

Application forms:
CVs or resumes;
Copies of your passport other identity documents;
Information collected through interviews or other forms of assessment [such as online tests].

The practice will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as:

References supplied by former employers;
Information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks;
The practice may seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that it is doing so.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including:

Your application record;
HR management systems;
IT systems (including email).

Why does the practice process personal data?

The practice needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

The practice needs to process data to ensure that it complies with its legal obligations such as being required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

The practice has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows the practice to:

Manage the recruitment process;
Assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment;
Decide to whom to offer a job;
Respond to and defend against legal claims.

Where the practice relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it will consider whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of applicants, employees or workers.

The practice will process health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. Where the practice processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

The practice is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences in line with NHS Employers guidelines on criminal records checks, which you can read at: NHS Employers: Criminal record check standards.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes:

Interviewers involved in the recruitment process
Managers in the area with a vacancy
IT staff

The practice will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The practice will then share your data with [former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks].

The practice will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

How does the practice protect data?

The practice takes the security of your data seriously. Internal policies and controls are in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties. [Insert details of internal policies and controls]

For how long does the practice keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the practice will hold your data on file for no longer than six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period [or once you withdraw your consent where this applies], your data is deleted or destroyed.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file [and retained during your employment]. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
require the practice to change incorrect or incomplete data;
require the practice to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
object to the processing of your data where the practice is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
ask the practice to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the practice’s legitimate grounds for processing data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact [name, contact email or address.

If you believe that the practice has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the practice during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the practice may not be able to process your application properly or at all.