What You Need to Do

CARE.DATA

From 1st April 2014, NHS England will have the right to extract data from your medical records. We need to make sure that you know this is happening and the choices you have.

There are changes occurring in how we protect the confidential and personal information that we record in your medical records. The changes make it a legal obligation for us to share your information. The proposed benefits of sharing identifiable data are to help to plan and monitor effective patient services, especially where patients receive care from several different organisations.

Once your information has been taken from different health organisations (GP practices, hospitals, mental health trusts) it will then be linked together to produce a complete record about you. This information will be stored on national secure servers and will be managed by the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIS). Although access to information will be strictly controlled, the HSCIC is planning to share this information with other organisations both NHS and private. The HSCIC will decide what information they will share and who they share this information with.

What you need to do:

If you are happy for NHS England to direct the HSCIC to extract, store and manage/use your information then you need do nothing as the information will be automatically taken from your GP’s computer system.

If you do not wish your information to be extracted then you must inform your GP practice who will then block the uploading of your information to the HSCIC. Please fill out the attached form and return it to St Lukes Medical Centre

If you are happy for your information to be extracted and used by the HSCIC for anonymised reports but NOT shared by the HSCIC with other agencies in identifiable format, a note can be made on your medical record that will prevent the HSCIC using information in this way. Please fill out the attached form and return it

Please note that there are differences between allowing the NHS to use your information for planning and research and the Summary Care Record which you may have previously chosen to opt out of.

For more information, including a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs), please go to the website You can also get further information from the website

CARE.DATA OPT OUT

Name:

Date of Birth:

Ref:

Please tick all of the boxes that apply:
I do not wish for my personal confidential data to be extracted from the GP practice.
I do not wish for my personal confidential data to be disclosed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

Name (BLOCK CAPITALS): …………………………………………………………………..

Signature: …………………………………………………………………………………………..

Date: …………………………………………………