We understand how important it is to keep your personal information safe and secure and we take this very seriously. We have taken steps to make sure your personal information is looked after in the best possible way, and we review this regularly.
Please read this privacy notice (‘Privacy Notice') carefully, as it contains important information about how we use the personal and healthcare information we collect on your behalf.
Our contact details as data controller
Name: Springfield Surgery
Address: Canalside Health Care Centre, 2 Kingsway, Bingley, West Yorkshire BD16 4RP.
Phone number: 01274 567991.
Email: b83067.springfieldsurgery@nhs.net
We are the data controller for your information. A controller decides on why and how information is used and shared.
The practice is registered with the Information Commissioners Office as a Data Controller- our registration number is: Z5710333.
Data Protection Officer contact details
Our Data Protection Officer is Daljeet Sharry-Khan and is responsible for monitoring our compliance with data protection requirements. You can contact them with queries or concerns relating to the use of your personal data at
Daljeet.sharry-khan@bradford.nhs.uk
Why we collect your information?
As a GP practice we are responsible for your day-to-day medical care and the purpose of this notice is to inform you of the type of information that we hold about you, how that information is used for your care, our legal basis for using the information, who we share this information with and how we keep it secure and confidential.
It covers information we collect directly from you (that you have either provided to us, or from consultations with staff members), or we collect from other organisations who manage your care (such as hospitals or community services).
We are required by law to maintain records about your health and treatment, or the care you have received within any NHS service.
These records help to ensure that you receive the best possible care. They may be paper or electronic and they may include:
By providing the Practice with their contact details, patients are agreeing to the Practice using those channels to communicate with them about their healthcare, i.e. by letter (postal address), by voice mail or voice message (telephone or mobile number), by text message (mobile number) or by email (email address).
You can find more detailed information about how we use your information for the following specific purposes here:
What information do we collect?
Personal information
We currently collect and use the following personal information:
More sensitive information
We process the following more sensitive data (including special category data):
How do we use your information and how do we get it?
As health professionals, we maintain records about you to direct, manage, and deliver the care you receive. By registering with the practice, your existing records will be transferred to us from your previous practice so that we can keep them up to date while you are our patient and if you do not have a previous medical record (a new-born child or coming from overseas, for example), we will create a medical record for you.
We take great care to ensure that your information is kept securely, that it is up to date, accurate and used appropriately. In the practice, individual staff will only look at what they need in order to carry out tasks such as booking appointments, making referrals, supporting your care, or to support the management of the services we provide.
The personal information we collect is provided directly from you for one of the following reasons:
We also receive personal information about you from others, in the following scenarios:
The NHS care record guarantee
The Care Record Guarantee is our commitment that we will use records about you in ways that respect your rights and promote your health and wellbeing. Copies of the full document can be obtained from:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130513181549/http:/www.nigb.nhs.uk/guarantee
Primary Care Networks
All practices in the UK are members of a Primary Care Network (PCN), which is a group of practices who have chosen to work together and with local community, mental health, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services to provide care to their patients.
PCNs are built on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care.
We are members of Bingley Bubble PCN along with, Bingley Medical Practice. Oak Glen Surgery, Eldwick. Baildon Medical Practice. Wilsden Medical Practice.
This arrangement means that practices within the same PCN may share data with other practices within the PCN, for the purpose of patient care (such as extended hours appointments and other services), Each practice within the PCN is part of a stringent data sharing agreement that means that all patient data shared is treated with the same obligations of confidentiality and data security.
For commissioning and healthcare planning purposes:
In some cases, for example when looking at population healthcare needs, some of your data may be shared (usually in such a way that you cannot be identified from it). The following organisations may use data in this way to inform policy or make decisions about general provision of healthcare, either locally or nationally.
In order to comply with its legal obligations we may send data to NHS Digital when directed by the Secretary of State for Health under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
This practice contributes to national clinical audits and will send the data which are required by NHS Digital when the law allows. This may include demographic data, such as date of birth, and information about your health which is recorded in coded form, for example, the clinical code for diabetes or high blood pressure.
Population Health Management:
Population Health Management (PHM) is about improving the physical and mental health of people. It involves analysing data, in a format which does not identify individuals, and using the results to help making decisions on ways to prevent ill-health, improve care, reduce hospital admissions, and help ensure that the most effective services are available for our patients.
The benefits of PHM are:
We, and other healthcare providers like the hospital and community service providers, send information that relates to you to our data processor the North of England Commissioning Support Unit (NECS). NECS then pseudonymise this data, which means the information that could identify you is removed and is replaced with a pseudonym. Information about the different health and care interventions you have had is then linked together so that it can be analysed without identifying you.
This pseudonymised data is then shared with West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board who will analyse the data to carry out commissioning and planning services and Population Health Management. Sometimes this analysis identifies individuals who might benefit from direct interventions to prevent illness. The results relating to patients registered at our practice are sent back to us so that we can assess who would benefit or require a particular healthcare intervention.
You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything.
If you do not want your data to be used in this way, you can opt-out of all planning and research initiatives through the national data opt-out service. Access this service online at www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters or by calling: 0300 303 5678.
Summary Care Record
Your Summary Care Record (SCR) is a short summary of your GP medical records. It tells other health and care staff who care for you about the medicines you take and your allergies.
All patients registered with a GP have a SCR, unless they have chosen not to have one. Your SCR contains basic information about allergies and medications and any reactions that you have had to medication in the past.
Some patients, including many with long term health conditions, have previously agreed to have Additional Information shared as part of their Summary Care Record. This additional information includes information about significant medical history (past and present), reasons for medications, care plan information and immunisations.
The purpose of SCR is to improve the care that you receive, however, if you don't want to have an SCR you have the option to opt out. If this is your preference please inform your GP or fill in an SCR patient consent preferences form and return it to your GP practice.
For research purposes
Research data is usually shared in a way that individual patients are non-identifiable. Occasionally where research requires identifiable information you may be asked for your explicit consent to participate in specific research projects. The surgery will always gain your consent before releasing any information for this purpose, unless the research has been granted a specific exemption from the Confidentiality Advisory Group of the Health Research Authority
Where specific information is asked for, such as under the National Diabetes audit, you will be given the choice to opt of the audit.
For safeguarding purposes, life or death situations or other circumstances when we are required to share information:
We may also disclose your information to others in exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations) or in accordance with Dame Fiona Caldicott's information sharing review (Information to share or not to share).
For example, your information may be shared in the following circumstances:
Who do we share information with?
We share information about you with other health professionals to support your care, and in more limited ways for indirect care purposes:
From time to time, we may offer you referrals to other providers, specific to your own health needs not included in the list above. In these cases, we will discuss the referral with you and advise you that we will be sharing your information (generally by referral) with those organisations.
We may also share information with the following types of organisations:
In some circumstances we are legally obliged to share information. This includes:
We will also share information if the public good outweighs your right to confidentiality. This could include:
We may also process your information in order to de-identify it, so that it can be used for purposes beyond your individual care whilst maintaining your confidentiality. These purposes will include to comply with the law and for public interest reasons.
Is information transferred outside the UK?
As a GP surgery, we do not routinely send patient data outside of the UK / EU where the laws do not protect your privacy to the same extent as the law in the UK.
Our data is hosted in UK and is only available to our staff and technical support staff in the UK.
What is our lawful basis for using information?
Under UK GDPR the Practice are mandated to identify a legal basis to process your
personal information.
For personal data
Special Category data (Sensitive Data including Health Records)
Common law duty of confidentiality
In our use of health and care information, we satisfy the common law duty of confidentiality because:
How do we protect your personal information?
As a Practice, we are committed to protecting your privacy and will only process data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, professional codes of practice, the Human Rights Act 1998 and other appropriate legislation.
Everyone working for the Practice has a legal and contractual duty to keep information about you confidential. All our staff receive appropriate and ongoing training to ensure that they are aware of their personal responsibilities and their obligations to uphold confidentiality.
Staff are trained to ensure how to recognise and report any incident and the organisation has procedures for investigating, managing and learning lessons from any incidents that occur.
All identifiable information that we hold about you in an electronic format will be held securely and confidentially in secure hosted servers that pass stringent security standards.
Any companies or organisations we use we may use to process your data are also legally and contractually bound to operate under the same security and confidentiality requirements.
All identifiable information we hold about you within paper records is kept securely and confidentially in lockable cabinets with access restricted to appropriately authorised staff.
As an organisation we are required to provide annual evidence of our compliance with all applicable laws, regulations and standards through the Data Security and Protection toolkit.
Your information is securely stored for the time periods specified in the Records Management Code of Practice.
All records are retained and destroyed in accordance with the NHS Records Management Code of Practice.
The Practice does not keep patient records for longer than necessary and all records are destroyed confidentially once their retention period has been met, and the Practice has made the decision that the records are no longer required.
What are your data protection rights?
Under the GDPR all patients have certain rights in relation to the information which the practice holds about them. Not all of these will rights apply equally, as certain rights are not available depending on situation and the lawful basis used for the processing.
For reference these rights may not apply are where the lawful basis we use (as shown in the above table in the section on “lawful bases”) is:
Right to be informed
You have the right to be informed of how your data is being used. The propose of this document is to advise you of this right and how your data is being used by the practice.
The right of access
You have the right of access You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information, this is often referred to as a ‘Subject Access Request'. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process.
You can make a subject access request by emailing: b083067.springfieldsurgery@nhs.net
The right to rectification
You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete. This right always applies.
The right to erasure
You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances- This will not generally apply in the matter of health care data
The right to restrict processing
You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances- You have to right to limit the way in which your data is processed if you are not happy with the way the data has been managed.
The right to object
You have the right to object to processing if you disagree with the way in which part of your data is processed you can object to this- please bear in mind that this may affect the medical services we are able to offer you
Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.
Your rights in relation to automated processing- Sometimes your information may be used to run automated calculations. These can be as simple as calculating your Body Mass Index or ideal weight but they can be more complex and used to calculate your probability of developing certain clinical conditions, and we will discuss these with you if they are a matter of concern.
No decisions about individual care are made solely on the outcomes of these tools, they are only used to help us assess your possible future health and care needs with you and we will discuss these with you.
The right to data portability
Your right to data portability you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another. The right only applies if we are processing information based on your consent or under a contract, and the processing is automated, so will only apply in very limited circumstances.
National data opt-out.
Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.
The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:
This may only take place when there is a clear lawful basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential health and care information is only used like this when allowed by law.
Whenever possible data used for research and planning is anonymised, so that you cannot be identified and your confidential information is not accessed.
You have a choice about whether you want your confidential information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out your confidential information will still be used to support your individual care.
To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters. On this web page you will:
You can change your mind about your choice at any time.
Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.
Our organisation has reviewed the disclosures we make and is compliant with the national data opt-out policy.
OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service
The NHS England OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service is a secure, transparent, open-source software platform for analysis of electronic health data. The system provides access to de-identified (pseudonymised) personal data to support Approved Users (academics, analysts, and data scientists) to undertake approved projects for COVID-19 research, COVID-19 clinical audit, COVID-19 service evaluation and COVID-19 health surveillance purposes.
The purposes for processing are to identify medical conditions and medications that affect the risk or impact of COVID-19 infection on individuals; this will assist with identifying risk factors associated with poor patient outcomes as well as information to monitor and predict demand on health services.
Further information can be found on the NHS digital website.
Other ways we use your information.
Call recording
All Telephone calls are routinely recorded for the following purposes:
To make sure that staff act in compliance with Springfield Surgery procedures.
To ensure quality control.
Training, monitoring and service improvement
To prevent crime, misuse and to protect staff and patients.
SMS Text messaging
When attending the Practice for an appointment or a procedure you may be asked to confirm that the Practice has an accurate contact number and mobile telephone number for you. This can be used to provide appointment details via SMS text messages and automated calls to advise you of appointment times.
CCTV
We employ surveillance cameras (CCTV) on and around our practice in order to:
We will only retain surveillance data for a reasonable period or as long as is required by law. In certain circumstances (high profile investigations, serious or criminal incidents) we may need to disclose CCTV data for legal.
How long are records retained
All records are retained and destroyed in accordance with the NHS Records Management Code of Practice.
The Practice does not keep patient records for longer than necessary and all records are destroyed confidentially once their retention period has been met, and the Practice has made the decision that the records are no longer required.
We carefully consider any personal information that we store about you, and we will not keep your information for longer than is necessary for the purposes as set out in this Privacy Notice.
Freedom of Information
The Freedom of information Act 2000 provides any person with the right to obtain certain information held by the Practice, subject to a number of exemptions. If you would like to request some information from us, please contact us.
Please note: if your request is for information, we hold about you (for example, your health record), please instead see above, under "How You Can Access Your Records".
We may amend this privacy notice at any time so please review it frequently. The date at the top of this page will be amended each time this notice is updated.
How do I complain?
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at b83067.springfieldsurgery@nhs.net
Following this, if you are still unhappy with how we have used your data, you can then complain to the ICO.
The ICO's address is:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk
Date of last review
This privacy notice was reviewed and updated in January 2025.