Privacy

Our Data Protection Officer is Leanne Nally.

Fair Processing / Privacy Notice for Peel GPs

1. Introduction

The law determines how organisations can use the personal information they collect. This is underpinned by the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality together with legislation we must comply with including:

• Data Protection Act 1998
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Health and Social Care Act 2012

Peel GPs holds and uses the personal and confidential information of its patients for a number of purposes. This notice sets out in general terms a summary of the type of information we hold about you, what we use if for and also who we may share your information with.

2. Information held

Peel GPs collects personal confidential information about you. This information may include (but is not limited to):

• Your name, address telephone number, date of birth and next of kin
• Appointment details, associated admissions
• Correspondence, notes and reports
• Investigations and test results

Peel GPs uses this information for the following reasons:

• to help inform the decisions that we need to make about your care
• to ensure that your treatment is safe and effective, including any advice that may be provided as part of your care
• to help us to work effectively with other organisations who may also be involved in your care

3. Information sharing

Peel GPs may share information held about you with other organisations to support:

For patient care (identifiable information):

• to promote continuity of care by sharing your information with other professionals involved in your care
• to promote safe care by sharing your information with other health care professionals who might be involved in your care such as emergency departments and out of hours doctor services

For planning and assurance (information in anonymised format which does not include information from the patient written notes):

• to help protect the general health of the public
• to manage and plan services for the future
• to review the quality of care provided by the practice to ensure it remains effective
• to help our staff review the care that is provided to ensure it is of the highest standard and to enable the continual improvement of care
• to comply with a legal obligation
  • (December 2025) NHS England has been directed by the government to establish and operate the OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service and the OpenSAFELY Data Analytics Service. These services provide a secure environment that supports research, clinical audit, service evaluation and health surveillance for COVID-19 and other purposes.
  • Each GP practice remains the controller of its own GP patient data but is required to let approved users run queries on pseudonymised patient data. This means identifiers are removed and replaced with a pseudonym.
  • Only approved users are allowed to run these queries, and they will not be able to access information that directly or indirectly identifies individuals
  • You can find more information here https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/about-the-nhs/opt-out-of-sharing-your-health-records/

Organisations with which information is routinely shared with for the reasons set out above include but are not limited to:

For patient care:

• Local hospitals
• Emergency and out of hours services

For planning and assurance:

• NHS England
• Public Health England
• GMICB

4. Opting out

All patients have the right to opt out of allowing their personal information to be shared with other healthcare organisations. If you wish to do this, please speak to a member of the practice staff.

For more detailed information about your rights and our responsibilities in respect of data protection, we have a number of information leaflets that are available in our waiting areas and reception, as well as further resources on our website. Easy read format as well as information in other languages is available upon request.

5. Security of your information

Peel GPs has a range of security measures in place to ensure that your information is held, and where appropriate, shared in a secure way. Your patient record will only be accessed by those members of practice staff who are authorised to do so. If you have any concerns about the way we handle your information, please speak to a member of the practice staff.