Privacy Policy
Worcestershire LMC Ltd provides advice and support to GPs and practice managers in the county. We hold names, email addresses, sometimes telephone numbers and, occasionally, other personal data in order to do this. We also maintain contact with other organisations for mutual support and advice.
LMCs are the independent bodies, recognised and defined by statute in the NHS Act 2006, (as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012) as formally representing to NHS England, and through delegated primary care commissioning arrangements, to CCGs, all GPs providing NHS General Medical Services (ie GMS partners) and any other GPs performing (ie PMS or APMS partners, salaried GPs and locums) NHS Medical Services in their areas that choose to be so represented.
The legal basis (under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, to be enacted by the 2018 Data Protection Bill now going through Parliament) under which we hold this personal data is the shared legitimate interest of all parties that this communication should continue to be given and received.
By legitimate interest we mean that we have the best interests of Practices and all those working within general practice at our core and our sole reason for communicating with individuals is to share relevant and appropriate up-to-date information.
The normal system has been that practice managers will let us have the email addresses of GPs when they join the practice as we have no access to the NHS Global Address List. We intend this arrangement to continue, subject to the restrictions below.
- If we wish to do any data processing beyond what is necessary to provide you with information or support we will seek your specific consent. In particular we will not share your personal data with anyone without asking your permission first.
- When we send out information we will ensure that your personal data is protected and not shared
- You can ask for a copy of the personal data we hold on you, which we will provide within 30 days.
- We will retain your name and email address on our mailing list as long as we are operating as an LMC unless you contact us and ask to be removed.
- It may be necessary for us to share your name and email address and any other information you may provide to us with relevant organisations such as NHS England or the CCG. This will only be where we are acting in your best interests or where we are escalating an issue on your behalf.
- You have the right to ‘be forgotten’ but if you ask us to delete your contact details you will no longer receive any communications or benefits from us.
- If your email address or other item of personal data that you know we hold should change, or if we have it wrong in the first place, please let us know so that we can correct it.
- If you leave medical practice or give up work in either of the counties, or simply move away we should be grateful if you would tell us of your intention so that we can remove your personal data from our records – we have no wish to keep them longer than we must.
We hold your data electronically, password protected, on a secure off-site server. The office is located in a secure part of the surgery not accessible by members of the public. Any paper documents are stored securely in a locked cabinet.
Our Website
Our webserver may collect certain information such as:
(a) IP addresses;
(b) host names;
(c) domain name;
(d) the time and date information is requested;
(e) the browser version and platform when information is requested;
(f) a record of which pages have been requested.
We may use this information to produce aggregate visitor statistics in relation to which pages are being accessed. We may also use it to monitor usage patterns on this website in order to improve navigation and design features to help you get information more easily. This information is collated and provided to us as daily log files. In order to help us develop the website and our services we may provide such aggregate information to third parties. These statistics will not include information that can be used to identify any individual.
The use of cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by a web server on your computer when you visit a website. The information stored by a web server is in the form of a small data file written to your hard drive. These small data files contain information which enables our web server to personalise your future use of our site. For example, the use of a cookie allows us to display the results of a poll once a user has voted.
Access to secure areas of the website may be dependent upon the use of cookies. Most browsers allow the user to control the cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. If users disable cookies on their computer, some features of our website may be unavailable to them.
IP addresses
Each time you use the internet, an IP address is assigned to your computer via your Internet Service Provider. This number may either be the same or different each time. Each time your computer requests information from our website, we log your IP address on our server. We may use this information in order to gather information about website traffic.
You do have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office and further information on how to do this can be found on their website:
Should you have any queries regarding any of the above please contact the LMC Office on the number below.
This policy will be reviewed annually and you will be made aware of any changes.
Lat Reviewed 22nd July 2024
Worcestershire LMC Ltd
The Office, Threshing Barn, Hillcourt Farm, Welland, Malvern, Worcs. WR13 6NH
admin@worcslmc.co.uk
www.worcslmc.co.uk