Connect Care: How We use your Information
What is Connect Care?
In the past health and social care workers from the local organisations involved in your care did not have a system in place to share important information about your care automatically. This meant that GPs, hospital staff, district nurses, occupational therapists, and others involved in your care did not always have immediate access to all the information needed to provide timely and efficient care.
To address this, in 2015 a new local electronic record system was launched; this system is called Connect Care. Connect Care allows important information about you to be shared securely so that it can be viewed quickly and safely by staff directly involved in your care, such as GPs, hospital staff, district nurses, occupational therapists and social workers. This will enable them to make more informed decisions about your care and treatment.
Do I have a Choice?
Yes. To find out what your options are, please visit the Connect Care website: www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/connectcare.
Where can I find out more about Connect Care?
Please visit the Connect Care website www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/connectcare.
Setting a national opt-out preference
Commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health Dame Fiona Caldicott, the National Data Guardian for Health Care (NDG) has reviewed data security and data sharing in the health and social care system. The so-called ‘Caldicott review’ provides for people to be able to make an informed choice about whether to share data or not.
Patients and public who decide they do not want their personally identifiable data used for planning and research purposes will be able to set their national opt-out preference
As of the 25th May 2018, residents have the right to opt out of your personal confidential information being used for the following purposes.
- Providing local services and running the NHS and social care
- Supporting research and improving treatment of care
To set an opt-out preference, NHS Digital will offer digital (online) and non-digital national data opt-out systems. For further information and support relating to opt-outs, please contact NHS Digital or by phoning 0300 303 5678.
Exceptional circumstances
The opt-out will not apply where there is a mandatory legal requirement or an overriding public interest. These will be areas where there is a legal duty to share information (for example a fraud investigation) or an overriding public interest (for example to tackle the ebola virus).