NHS Digital (formerly the Health and Social Care Information Centre) uses health and social care information in a number of ways to support your personal care and to improve health and social care services for everyone.
Here in the surgery and in other care settings, such as hospitals and community services, staff record information about you and your care. The NHS Care Information Choices Programme allows you to decide who can access your personal data.
You can choose to opt out of your information being shared or used for any purpose other than your direct care (such as a referral we may make to a specialist doctor).
There are two types of opt out:
Opt out one
This is a choice you can make to prevent any information which identifies you, to be shared outside the surgery. Your choice will be overridden if there are specific circumstances by law, such as a national pandemic, where the information will be extracted.
Opt out two
This opt out prevents information from any NHS source that identifies you, being shared outside NHS Digital.
Further details on the Care Information Choices Programme can be found here.
If you are happy for your information to be used by NHS Digital, you do not need to do anything. If you wish to opt out, please print and complete the opt out form below, returning this to us so that we can mark your choice in your medical record.
Heathgate Care Information Choices Opt Out Form