Policies and Information Governance

Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential

Access Standards

Access to Patient Records

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Such requests should be made through the practice admin team and may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient's consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

If you would like to request a copy medical records, please complete the following form(s) :

Individual Rights Request Form
Individual Rights Consent Form - to be completed if you are making a request on behalf of a patient

Confidentiality & Medical Records

The practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.
To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.
When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Freedom of Information

Information about the General Practioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All requests for such information should be made to the practice manager.

This publication scheme is a complete guide to the information routinely made available to the public by this practice. It is a description of the information about Cathays Surgery and each of the General Practitioners that work there that is available to the public. It will be reviewed at regular intervals and we will monitor its effectiveness. At the present time, in addition to accessing the information identified in the Publication Scheme you are entitled to request information about Cathays Surgery under the code of Practice on Openness in the NHS issued by the Welsh Office in 1995. Hard copies of the code of Practice are available free of charge from: The NHS Wales Department of the Welsh Assembly Government, Cathays Park Cardiff.

The information is also available on the Department of Health Website: www.doh.gov.uk

Information regarding any of the above details can be obtained from the Practice manager.

Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations Policy

This is the Guide to Retention Schedules that we adhere to at the practice.

GP Access

What To Expect From Your Local Surgery

ICO Model Publication Scheme

We have adopted the The ICO Model Publication Scheme which you can view below.

ICO Model Publication Scheme

Individual Rights

Cathays Surgery Individual Rights Patient Handout

Privacy Notice

Privacy Notice - English

Privacy Notice - Cymraeg

Addendum Privacy Notice - SE Cluster

Research Data Collection

The staff at this practice record information about you and your health so that you can receive the right care and treatment. We need to record this information, together with the details of the care you receive, so that it is available each time we see you.

The information recorded about you may be used for reasons other than your personal care, for example, to help to protect the health of the general public, to plan for the future, to train staff and to carry out medical and other health research.

We are involved in research studies which require access to anonymous information from patients’ notes. You cannot be identified from these notes as all personal details (name, address, post code, full date of birth) are removed. Individual patients’ records are added into a much larger anonymous database from many patients across the UK which is used by researchers outside this practice. This data may be anonymously linked to other data, such as hospital data.

If you would like to opt out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and your records will not be collected for use in the anonymous research database. This will not affect your care in any way.

If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted by your GP to see if you are willing to take part; you will not be identified in any published results.

You have a right of access to your health records. If at any time you would like to know more, or have any concerns about how we use your information, please ask reception for more details.

Violence Policy

Zero Tolerance Notice for Patients

The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.