You have the legal right under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 to request access to your health records and any other personal information that we may hold about you. A request for information made in this way is called a Subject Access Request.
If you would like a copy of the information the Trust holds about you, or to view this information in person, please complete the online Personal Information Access Request form.
If you require any guidance at any stage of the process, please call the Data Access Team on 01253 952849 / 952474 / 956802 / 958104 / 958105.
We aim to reply promptly to all subject access requests and are legally obliged to provide this information within one month of receiving a complete and valid request (this may be extended if the request is identified as complex). Please note, a request is not complete and valid until ID requirements have been met.
Under normal circumstances there will be no charge for this service.
Requesting another person's information
It may also be necessary or appropriate for a request for personal information to be made by an individual on behalf of another person. Examples of this include a parent requesting their young child’s records or a relative using power of attorney for a patient who lacks mental capacity.
This is still regarded as a subject access request. Guidance on the documentation required to access the records of another person can be found on the Personal Information Access Request Form above.
The right of access to the personal information of deceased persons is provided under the Access to Health Records Act 1990. Our process for handling such requests is broadly similar to the process for subject access requests, but it is possible that further documentation is required to prove the right of access. Guidance on this can be found on the form.
Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment
Patients with mental capacity over the age of 18 years-old have a right to consent to or refuse treatment.
An "advance decision to refuse treatment" is a formal statement made by a person to refuse specified medical treatment at a time in the future when that person may lack mental capacity.
If you would like to issue or retract such a statement, please send it to the Data Access Team.
Receiving your information
We will aim to provide you with all the information you have requested although there may be times when we may refuse a request or not provide everything you have requested. If this happens we will:
- Tell you as soon as possible and within one month
- Outline our reasons for not taking the action you have requested
- If you are unhappy with the decision, we would always ask that you come back to us in the first instance, either informally or via our complaints procedure, to try to resolve the situation. If you remain dissatisfied you have the right to complain to our supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office
