Health records
When you visit one of our hospitals, we record what happens to you so that your doctor, nurse or other health care professional can plan your future care. Clinic visits, operations, tests and investigations are documened in your health record, alongside copies of all correspondence relating to your care, for example letters to your GP. We also record information such as allergies, medicines, past reactions to medicines, and any long term conditions such as diabetes or asthma.
We hold personal information about you such as your name, address, gender, next of kin and ethnic origin. It is important that you tell us of any changes to your personal information.
You can read about the types of data we hold, how this is used, your rights and who to contact about your data on our privacy notice.
Digital health records
As part of the NHS goal of becoming paperless, the Trust is gradually introducing digital records for nursing and doctor’s documentation, as well as electronic prescribing and medication administration.
These changes will provide staff with more effective time management, remove the risks assocated with paper (caused by handwriting legibility, transcription mistakes and unavailibility of documents), improve communication and access to information, and ultimately provide better care to our patients. The changes are being introduced in phases and will not immediately affect all areas, and your care will not be affected in any way.
National Data Opt Out (NDOO)
NHS Digital launched the National Data Opt Out on 25th May 2018, to coincide with the EU GDPR.
www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters
They have produced a brief fact sheet about it – Patient+handout+Final+v1.0+web.pdf
If you wish to opt out
Anyone aged 13yrs or over can set their NDOO status via an online service at www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters or phone 0300 330 9412.
If you are acting on behalf of another individual (i.e. you have a child 12 or under or as a proxy, perhaps with lasting power of attorney authority), you cannot do this online and will have to ring 0300 330 9412 instead (or via other so-called “non-digital” methods).
Confidentiality
Your health record is kept confidential within the hospital at all times and is only shared with staff when they need it to carry out their job. All staff are required to work to strict professional and contractual codes of confidentiality and where possible we will anonymise information so that individual patients cannot be identified. The only time information will be shared to outside organisations is if they are directly involved in your care, for instance, your GP, social worker, community nurses or other hospital.
Copies of your health record
You can obtain a copy of your health record information by completing the Subject access request form[docx] 186KB and contacting the varies hospitals concerned on the information page (see page 3 of the request form) .
Barts Health NHS Trust Archives
If the patient’s last contact with one of our hospitals took place over 30 years ago, the Trust Archives team might hold limited clinical information in their historic research collections. Please note the archives does not hold detailed patient records or case-notes, these are administered by the Health Records teams and disposed of after completion of a fixed retention period.