St George’s Medical Centre

Patient confidentiality

We respect your right to privacy and keep all your health information confidential and secure. It is important that the NHS keeps accurate and up-to-date records about your health and treatment so that those treating you can give you the best possible care.

This information may be used for management and audit purposes. However, it is usually only available to, and used by, those involved in your care. You have the right to know what information we hold about you. If you would like to see your records please contact the Practice Manager.

EDSM – Sharing Your Medical Records

The clinical computer system used at St George’s Medical Centre is SystmOne. It is a system that is used widely in this area and across England. This system gives us a facility (The Enhanced Data Sharing Model – EDSM) to share your health record with other health providers involved in your care.

Your health record includes your medical history, details about your medication and any allergies you may have. You can now choose whether to share these full medical details with other health provider units (for example District nurses).

Many organisations may use SystmOne including some GP practices, out of hours services, children’s services, community services and some hospitals. Sharing your health record will help us deliver the best level of care for you.

You have two choices which allow you to control how your record is shared. You can change these choices at any time by completing the consent form.

If you have any queries please contact the “Patient Experience Team” (formerly PALS) on 0800 279 2535.

Sharing OUT

This controls whether your information recorded at this practice can be shared with other health care providers.

Sharing IN

This determines whether or not this practice can view information in your record that has been entered by other services who are providing care for you or who may provide care for you in the future.

Imagine you are receiving care from three services, your GP, a district nurse and a smoking clinic. You want your GP and district nurse to share information with each other and you want both of them to know your progress at the smoking clinic. However, you don’t want the smoking clinic to see any of your other medical information.

Your sharing choices at each place would be:-

The GP can share information IN and OUT
The district nurse can share IN and OUT
The smoking clinic can not share IN but can share OUT.

Download a consent form. Please return the completed form to the surgery so that we can update your records.

Exceptions

In very exceptional circumstances your information may be shared without your permission – for example if your life is at risk.

A parent can give consent to share a child’s record. This will be recoded as “Consent Not Asked” and “parental consent give” noted as the reason why the record was shared.

Vaccinations will be shared regardless of whether there is a consent to share or not.

Summary Care Record

The Summary Care Record (SCR) is a national sharing of demographic data such as name and address etc plus current medications and allergies. This information can be accessed by other health provider units, including hospitals and Out of Hours doctors that may or may not use the same clinical computer system as us.

For more information download the patient leaflet.

If you do not wish this information to be shared, please download, complete and return the Opt Out form to the surgery so that we can update your records.

Date published: 10th October, 2014
Date last updated: 8th November, 2019