Children's Privacy Notice - (Applies to Children 13 to 16 years)

What is a privacy notice?

A privacy notice helps your doctor’s surgery tell you how it uses information it has about you, like your name, address, date of birth and all of the notes the doctor or nurse makes about you in your healthcare record.

Why do we need one?

Your doctor’s surgery needs a privacy notice to make sure it meets the legal requirements which are written in a new document called the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR for short).

What is the GDPR?

What a great question! The GDPR is a new document that helps your doctor’s surgery keep the information about you secure. It’s new and will be introduced on the 25th May 2018, making sure that your doctor, nurse and any other staff at the practice follow the rules and keep your information safe.

How do you know about our privacy notice?

At our surgery, we have posters in our waiting room and leaflets to give to children and adults and we also have lots of information about privacy on our website, telling you how we use the information we have about you.

How do we use your information?

This notice explains why the practice collects information about you and how that information may be used.

The health care professionals, who provide you with care will keep records about your health and any treatment or care you have received (e.g. Hospital, GP Surgery, Walk-in Centre etc.). These records help to give you the best possible healthcare.

Like adults, young people (aged 16 or 17) are presumed to have sufficient capacity to decide on their own medical treatment, unless there's significant evidence to suggest otherwise.

Children under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they're believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what's involved in their treatment. This is known as being Gillick competent. More information can be found here - a GP will assess whether a person under 16 is gillick competent

These records may be electronic (information kept on our computers), on paper (letters that we may have or that we receive) or a mixture of both, and we take every care to make sure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Records which this GP Practice holds about you may include the following:

Details about you, such as your address, legal representative, emergency contact details
Any contact the surgery has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, emergency appointments, etc.
Notes and reports about your health
Details about any treatment you have had or are having.
Results of any tests that you may have such as blood tests, x-rays etc.
Important information from other health professionals, relatives or those who care for you
Important information from your school that may be to do with your health or wellbeing (eg. behaviour reports, concerns from teachers, vaccinations you have had)
Information from Child Health about any Health assessments or vaccinations you have had, you have missed or you may need.
Your records will be stored in line with the NHS Code of Practice for Records Management

It is our job to give you the best care possible and so your records are used to make sure that this happens. We may sometimes need to share your information with other people in the NHS to help us to make things in the NHS better. Most of the time, this information will not have your personal details (name. date of birth) so you cannot be identified. In cases where we do need to give your personal details, we will always ask if this is okay with you. Information may be used within the GP practice for clinical audits to help us monitor the quality of the care that you receive.

Sometimes your information may be requested to be used for research purposes – the surgery will always ask you before giving any information for this purpose.

How do we keep your information private?

Well, your doctor’s surgery knows that it is very important to protect the information we have about you. We make sure we follow the rules that are written in the GDPR and other important rule books.

What if I’ve got a long-term medical problem?

If you have a long-term medical problem then we know it is important to make sure your information is shared with other healthcare workers to help them help you, making sure you get the care you need when you need it!

What do I do if I have a question?

If you have any questions, ask a member of the surgery team or. You can:

Contact the practice’s data controller via the website. GP practices are data controllers for the data they hold about their patients.
Write to the data controller at Giffords Surgery, Spa Road, Melksham, SN10 7EA
Ask to speak to the Practice Manager or Deputy Practice Manager.

The Data Protection Officer (DPO) for Giffords Surgery is yet to be agreed and he/she will be based at BSW ICB.

What to do if you’re not happy about how we manage your information

We really want to make sure you’re happy, but we understand that sometimes things can go wrong. If you or your parents or adults with parental responsibility are unhappy with any part of our data-processing methods, you can complain. For more information, visit ico.org.uk and select ‘Raising a concern’.

We always make sure the information we give you is up to date. Any updates will be published on our website, in our newsletter and leaflets, and on our posters. This policy will be reviewed on May 2019.