Alliance Medical > Data Protection

Protecting, using and storing patient information

The following explains:

What information we collect about you
Why we collect the information
The ways in which we may use the information
Your right to apply for the information we hold about you

Personal Information

During your visit to one of our imaging centres, we will ask you for personal information. We will use this information so that we can give you the correct care and treatment. We may use information about you for other reasons such as to:

look after the health of the general public
help staff to review the care they provide to make sure it is of the highest standard
review our planning and services so that we meet patients’ needs
prepare statistics and ‘performance’ figures
train and educate staff

Whenever possible we will remove details that identify you.

Your health records include information on your physical or mental health. They are made by or on behalf of a health professional in connection with your care.

Health records can include:

hand-written clinical notes
letters to and from other health professionals
images such as scans or X-rays; and
recordings of phone conversations

We will send on a copy of relevant records we produce during your visit to the doctor who referred you. You should contact them if you have any questions about your treatment.

Data Protection

We are committed to protecting your personal information. We take great care to make sure that we keep your information confidential and safe. All staff have signed a confidentiality agreement and are aware of their duty to keep information about you confidential in line with the Data Protection Act 1998.

The law strictly controls the way we can share some types of personal information, including your health records and other sensitive personal information. We carry out training to keep our staff up to date with the law and best practice.

Everyone working in the healthcare sector has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and secure. However, we may need to share some information about you for your benefit, for example, to:

allow you to be well cared for by other health-related organisations; and
investigate complaints and legal claims

We will only ever use or pass on information about you if others involved in your care have a genuine need for it. We will also make sure it is kept confidential and secure. We will not reveal your information to anyone else without your permission unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as when the health or safety of others is at risk or if the law says we must pass on the information.

Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential and secure.

Transferring Information

To analyse your images and produce a report for the doctor who referred you we may need to transfer your information outside of England to elsewhere within the European Economic Area (EEA), for example, Scotland or Spain.

If we need to send your information outside of the EEA, we must have your permission.

Your rights to see your health records

You have a right to ask to see your health records. This includes information held on our computers and our manual systems. To see this information, you need to make a ‘subject access request’.

To do this you will need to contact our Information Governance Department.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 we are entitled to charge an administration fee of £10 for processing your application. We may make further charges for providing hard copies of information such as X-ray films (up to £50). You must make your request in writing to us and provide suitable identification and the appropriate fee. Legally we then have to process your request.

We have a responsibility to make sure that we keep personal information safe and not to reveal it to unauthorised people.

Because of this, you need to give us some proof of identity. This identification must clearly show your name and your correspondence address. For example you could use a utility (gas, electricity or water) bill, or driving licence.