It is helpful to know if you have a Carer (someone who takes on an unpaid caring role) or if you are a Carer for someone else. We have an established Carer’s policy and a Carer’s information pack available from Reception.

The consultation that takes place between a patient and their Doctor/Nurse is private and confidential. Quite often an examination is required to help make a diagnosis. This may be straightforward or sometimes can be more personal or of a sensitive nature.

Under these circumstances your Doctor will normally seek your agreement to a Nurse or other staff member being present.

If a chaperone is not offered but you would like someone to be present, do not be afraid to tell your doctor.

Procedures which are generally regarded as being of a sensitive nature are:

• Cervical cytology
• Gynaecological
• Testicular
• Breast Examination
• Rectal Examination

We are committed to providing our patients with services that are of a consistently high quality. However, even in the best run Practices occasionally things to not go as smoothly as we would like.

If at any time you feel that you need to make a formal complaint, we operate a Practice Based Complaints Procedure which fully complies with Department of Health requirements. View our Practice Complaints Procedure.

Our aim is to investigate complaints both thoroughly and speedily. We will carefully listen to what you tell us, take appropriate action and inform you of the outcome of our investigations.

(This Privacy Notice is to run alongside our standard Practice Privacy Notice)

As we move away from the initial response to COVID-19 the health and social care system
will need to continue to take action to manage and mitigate the spread and impact of the
outbreak.

This includes ensuring that approved researchers can continue to securely access
pseudonymised data held by GP IT systems to assist the health and care service’s response
to COVID-19 by, for example:

• recognising trends in COVID-19 diseases and identifying risks it poses
• controlling and preventing the spread of COVID-19
• monitoring and managing outbreaks

The OpenSAFELY COVID-19 research service provides a secure analytics service that supports COVID-19 research, COVID-19 clinical audit, COVID-19 service evaluation and COVID-19 health surveillance purposes.

Under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020 NHS England has been directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to establish and operate the OpenSAFELY service. While each GP practice remains the data controller of its own patient data, they are required under the provisions of s259 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to provide access to de-identified (pseudonymised) patient data through the OpenSAFELY service.

The service enables individuals (academics, analysts and data scientists) approved by NHS England to run queries on pseudonymised GP and NHS England patient data which is held within the GP system suppliers’ data environments. Controls are in place to ensure that individuals only have access to aggregated outputs from the service (i.e. they cannot access information that either directly or indirectly identifies individuals).

Purpose of this Notice

OpenSAFELY service is used to analyse de-identified (pseudonymised) data within the EMIS and TPP boundaries, to support COVID-19 related research.

This is a continuation of a service which is supported by the BMA which has been operating since 2020. The permanent legal basis (the COVID-19 Direction) above allows the practice to provide this data to NHSE as an ongoing service.

The OpenSAFELY service is a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) established within the secure environment of EMIS and TPP. Researchers write their analysis code away from the patient data; the code is run automatically on de-identified (pseudonymised) patient data; and only the aggregated outputs (now anonymous) are shared with researchers to be used, for example, in journal publications, reports or presentations.

These controls keep patient data secure inside EMIS and TPP and confidential from researchers. The use of TREs and the data processing principles which OpenSAFELY represents is supported by the RCGP.

To date, this service has supported a range of important COVID-19 related research, including one of the world’s first and largest studies to identify the clinical factors associated with COVID-19 related death, which informed the national COVID-19 vaccination strategy and Green Book guidance. Other studies have also informed COVID-19 related NICE guidance and decisions made by SAGE.

All NHS England approved research studies are published online, including sharing the exact analysis code each study used to analyse the patient data, by whom and when such code was run. In future, NHSE will also publish approvals on our data release register. During the pandemic, and in the recovery phase, de-identified data has been crucial in helping to save lives. It has supported research into COVID-19 and the ways that it has affected our lives, our health, and to identify effective medicines and treatments.

Research has helped to identify new treatments for COVID-19 and to understand how we can keep our communities safe. Data has helped us to prioritise the right care to the most vulnerable in our society and to develop vaccines to protect against COVID-19.

If you have any questions, please contact us at gpdata@nhs.net.

Recording of processing

A record will be kept by Dr Manickam & Partners of all data processed under this Notice.

Sending Public Health Messages

Data protection and electronic communication laws will not stop Dr Manickam & Partners from sending public health messages to you, either by phone, text or email as these messages are not direct marketing.

Digital Consultations

It may also be necessary, where the latest technology allows Dr Manickam & Partners to do so, to use your information and health data to facilitate digital consultations and diagnoses and we will always do this with your security in mind.

Creating a new NHS England: NHS England and NHS Digital merged on 1 February 2023. All references to NHS Digital now, or in the future, relate to NHS England.

The practice will provide within core hours, primary medical services required for the management of its registered patients and temporary residents, who are, or believe themselves to be, ill with conditions from which recovery is generally expected, terminally ill or suffering from chronic disease; delivered in the manner determined by the practice in discussion with the patient.

The practice will also provide primary medical services required within core hours for the immediately necessary treatment of any person requesting treatment owing to an accident or emergency at any place within its practice area.

The practice will include the provision of appropriate ongoing treatment and care to all registered patients and temporary residents, taking account of their specific needs including the provision of advice in connection with patients health, including relevant health promotion and the referral of other NHS services.

All registered patients have the right to express a preference to receive services from a particular Doctor, either generally or in relation to any particular condition; such preferences will be recorded by the Practice.

The Practice will endeavour to comply with any reasonable preference, but need not do so if the preferred performer has reasonable grounds for refusing to provide services to the patient or if the performer does not routinely perform the services in question within the Practice.

Please download a copy of our Practice Privacy Notice.

Alternatively, please contact reception to request a copy.

All practices, in line with government guidelines, have a ‘Zero Tolerance to Violence’ policy. This means that any violent or abusive behaviour or perceived threatening behaviour, whether verbal or otherwise to staff or members of the public on practice premises will not be tolerated. We can refuse to provide a service, report the incident to the Police and request that the patient and their family be removed from their Practice list.