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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law that determines how your personal data is processed and kept safe, and the legal rights that you have in relation to your own data. The regulation applied from 25th May 2018.

What is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulations and is a new piece of legislation that will supersede the Data Protection Act. It will not only apply to the UK and EU; it covers anywhere in the world in which data about EU citizens is processed.

The GDPR is similar to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 (which the practice already complies with), but strengthens many of the DPA’s principles. The main changes are:

Practices must comply with subject access requests
Where we need your consent to process data, this consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous
There are new, special protections for patient data
The Information Commissioner’s Office must be notified within 72 hours of a data breach
Higher fines for data breaches – up to 20 million euros

What GDPR will mean for patients?

The GDPR sets out the key principles about processing personal data, for staff or patients;

Data must be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently
It must be collected for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes
It must be limited to what is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed
Information must be accurate and kept up to date
Data must be held securely
It can only be retained for as long as is necessary for the reasons it was collected

There are also stronger rights for patients regarding the information that practices hold about them. These include:

Being informed about how their data is used
Patients to have access to their own data
Patients can ask to have incorrect information changed
Restrict how their data is used
Move their patient data from one health organisaton to another
The right to object to their patient information being processed (in certain circumstances)

What is 'patient data'?

Patient data is information that relates to a single person, such as his/her diagnosis, name, age, earlier medical history etc.

What is consent?

Consent is permission from a patient – an individual’s consent is defined as “any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed.”

We have a lawful basis for processing your medical information, and we do not need your consent to process your medical records for the purposes of providing your healthcare. However, we would need explicit consent should we wish to contact you about fundraising events, clinical research opportunities or even receiving appointment reminders by text message. This is to protect your right to privacy, and we may ask you to provide consent to do certain things, like contact you or record certain information about you for your clinical records.

You would then have the right to withdraw consent for these additional services at any time, but not to prevent us from acting on your medical information when we have a lawful basis to do so.

Learn more about the lawful basis for processing your medical information