The NHS and its staff must ensure that all personal data is handled in a lawful manner.

Information about you is securely managed and controlled within the NHS.

Information used to support your care

When you see a doctor, nurse or any other health professional, we ask you to give us information about yourself.  This helps us decide what treatment and care is best for you. We keep a record of any relevant information, which may be written down or held on computer.  This record is then known as your health or medical record.

Your medical record may include:

• Basic details about you such as name, address and next of kin
• Details of any diagnosis and treatment you receive including drug prescriptions
• Results of investigations such as blood tests and X-rays
• Details of contact you have with other health professionals such as visits to clinics
• Relevant information from other professionals and those who care for you

Different health professionals involved in your care will make their own notes, so you may have medical records in different parts of the NHS.

• Your GP practice should display a poster explaining about how records are shared – see “Your Sheffield Health and Care Records” poster for a copy
• If you would like to know more detail then there is a full five page version available – see “Your Sheffield Health and Care Records” full version

Information used to support the NHS

The Health and Social Care Information Centre

All healthcare providers regularly send information about most health activities such as hospital admissions, out-patient attendances, A&E attendances, GP visits to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).  This centre was set up as an Executive Non Departmental Public Body in April 2013.  The Health and Social Care Act 2012 sets out their responsibilities, which include:

• Collecting, analysing and presenting national health and social care data
• Setting up and managing national IT systems for transferring, collecting and analysing information.  They can be directed to do this by the Secretary of State or NHS England
• Publishing a set of rules (called a Code of Practice) to set out how the personal confidential information of patients should be handled and managed by health and care staff and organisations
• Building up a library of 'indicators' that can be used to measure the quality of health and care services provided to the public
• Acting to reduce how much paperwork doctors, nurses and care workers have to complete by ensuring that only essential data is collected, and that they avoid collecting the same information twice
• Helping health and care organisations improve the quality of the data they collect and send to the HSCIC by setting standards and guidelines to help them assess how well they are doing
• Creating a register of all the information that we collect and produce, and publishing that information in a range of different formats so that it will be useful to as many people as possible while safeguarding the personal confidential data of individuals.

The HSCIC’s statutory functions and duties are set out in Part 9, Chapter 2 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 - sections 252 to 275 - and in Schedule 18.

Some of the data held and processed by the HSCIC may be made available direct back to your GP to assist in your care.  This may include, for example, a calculated risk of admission score which your GP may use to help plan your care.   

NHS England

NHS England is the organisation that leads the NHS in England.  Its role is to commission services that deliver improved health outcomes for the people in England.  Some of this work is devolved down to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).  CCGs cover geographical areas and are responsible for addressing the health needs, and improving health outcomes, for individuals within their geographical area.

Information about the current health of our population plays a key role in improving such outcomes by enabling services to be put in place to address these health needs. NHS England has commissioned the HSCIC to set up an information service called “care.data”.  Information from this service will be used by GPs and other health providers to help improve patient care and the health services provided to local communities.

Information used for research

You may occasionally be invited to take part in Research projects.  You will be asked for your consent to be involved before any of your personal data may be used for these purposes.

Your Rights

Organisations that handle personal information have a legal obligation to protect that information under the Data Protection Act 1998.  The Act also gives you the general right to apply to see or to be given a copy of the personal information held about you.  Maximum fees for access and providing copies are set down by law.

In the event that you consider NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group NHSS CCG) has not complied with the Act, either in responding to a request or in our general processing of your personal information, you can contact the Complaints Lead at: SHECCG.Complaints@nhs.net or using the CCG address below.  If you are not satisfied with the response from the CCG then you have the right to complain to, appeal to or raise your concerns with the Information Commissioner and ask him to investigate whether we have complied with the Data Protection Act 1998.

The Information Commissioner’s website is at:  www.ico.gov.uk

The postal address is:
Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Enquiry Line: 01625 545700

Contact for Further Information

Queries about access to your patient records should be directed to the organisation where you received your care. If you are enquiring about your primary care records then your query should be directed to your GP practice. If you are enquiring about hospital records then your query should be directed to Sheffield Teaching Hospital, Sheffield Children’s Hospital, or the Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust as appropriate - please see their websites for contact details.

Sheffield Teaching Hospital: http://www.sth.nhs.uk/

Sheffield Children’s Hospital: http://www.sheffieldchildrens.nhs.uk/

Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust: http://www.sct.nhs.uk/

If you are still unsure who to contact send us the name of the service / clinic / location of the service you are enquiring about and we will aim to point you in the right direction.

If you have any further questions then please contact our general enquiries email address: sheCCG.sheffieldCCG@nhs.net

Or write to:

NHS Sheffield CCG,
722 Prince of Wales Road,
Sheffield, S9 4EU