The staff at this practice record information about you and your health so that you can receive the right care and treatment. We need to record this information, together with the details of the care you receive, so that it is available each time we see you.

The information recorded about you may be used for reasons other than your personal care, for example, to help to protect the health of the general public, to plan for the future, to train staff and to carry out medical and other health research.

We are involved in research studies which require access to anonymous information from patients’ notes. You cannot be identified from these notes as all personal details (name, address, post code, full date of birth) are removed. Individual patients’ records are added into a much larger anonymous database from many patients across the UK which is used by researchers outside this practice. This data may be anonymously linked to other data, such as hospital data.

If you would like to opt out of this data collection scheme, please let your doctor know and your records will not be collected for use in the anonymous research database. This will not affect your care in any way.

If anything to do with the research would require that you provide additional information about yourself, you will be contacted by your GP to see if you are willing to take part; you will not be identified in any published results.

You have a right to access to your health records. If at any time you would like to know more, or have any concerns about how we use your information, please ask reception for more details.