Subject Access Requests

We need to collect sensitive and personal information about you and your health.

We have a duty to keep this information confidential and to protect your information from being lost or disclosed by accident. There are a range of safeguards in place to make sure only those who need to access patient information do so. This may include other members of our staff or those that provide care outside hospital, other health bodies or medical researchers. Wherever possible, information is anonymised or referred to by just a hospital number rather than a name.

We will not disclose any information about you without your consent (or that of a guardian, or next of kin if a medical emergency), unless we have to by law.

You are entitled to be kept informed about the information we record about you, and can apply for copies of your medical records.

 

What are Health Records?

• details about you, for example your date of birth, address, next of kin,
• gender, language, ethnicity, any disabilities you have 
• hand-written clinical notes
• letters to and from other health professionals
• laboratory reports
• imaging scans such as X-rays
• printouts from monitoring equipment
• photographs

Can we charge a fee? 

In most cases we cannot charge a fee to comply with a subject access request.

 

However, as noted above, where the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive you may charge a “reasonable fee” for the administrative costs of complying with the request. However please note this is unlikely to apply in most cases as it is common for medical records to be large in size and would their provision would constitute a standard request.

 

We can also charge a reasonable fee if an individual requests further copies of their data following a request. We must base the fee on the administrative costs of providing further copies.

How will my records be sent? 

Your records will be sent to you electronically. Depending on the size of the file(s) your records will either be sent to you by a secure email or via the Trust’s secure transfer partner Filemail for larger files. Further details on Filemail can be found here.

Confidentiality