Privacy Notice – Pandemics

The health and social care system will take action to manage and mitigate the spread and impact of any pandemic outbreak. Action to be taken will require the processing and sharing of confidential patient information amongst health organisations and other bodies engaged in disease surveillance for the purposes of research, protecting public health, providing healthcare services to the public and monitoring and managing the pandemic outbreak and incidents of exposure.

Any notices of pandemic will be posted at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/   

Supplementary privacy notices may be issued on our website for specific pandemics as they occur.

1) Data Controller contact details

Telephone: 01373 301301

2) Data Protection Officer contact details

Telephone: 01935 384000

Email: somccg.GPDPO@nhs.net

3) Purpose of the  processing

The purpose of this Notice is to require organisations to process confidential patient information for the purposes set out in Regulation 3(1) of COPI to support the Secretary of State’s response to the pandemic. “Processing” for these purposes is defined in Regulation 3(2) and includes dissemination of confidential patient information to persons and organisations permitted to process confidential patient information under Regulation 3(3) of COPI.

4) Lawful basis for  processing

The legal basis will be

Article 6(1)(c) “processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject.”

and;

Article 9(2)(h) “processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services on the basis of Union or Member State law or pursuant to contract with a health professional and subject to the conditions and safeguards referred to in paragraph 3;”

5) Recipient or categories of recipients of the processed data

The data will be shared with NHS Digital according to directions which can be found at https://digital.nhs.uk/article/8059/NHS-England-Directions-

6) Rights to object

You have the right to object to some or all of the information being shared with NHS Digital. If you wish to do so please contact the practice.

7) Right to access and correct

You have the right to access the data that is being shared and have any inaccuracies corrected. There is no right to have accurate medical records deleted except when ordered by a court of Law.

8) Retention period

The data will be retained for active use during the processing and thereafter according to NHS Policies and the law.

9) Right to complain

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, you can use this link https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or calling their helpline Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate).