In order to give you the best possible treatment and care, we will ask you for information about yourself. The information you give may be kept on computer, paper record or both. It forms part of your clinical record and will be kept in case we need to see you again.
Some of the information you give us has to be shared with other people for us to treat you efficiently, manage our services and improve health and social care for the future. We only ever use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need to know. Wherever we can, we remove details which identify you personally.
The Royal Marsden is committed to Data Protection and Caldicott principles, the NHS regulations on patient confidentiality. We take great care to ensure that your data is looked after properly. We aim to comply with current legislation, NHS and other guidance, and professional codes of conduct.
All staff working at the Trust have a legal duty to keep information about you confidential.
Your information may be used for:
- giving you healthcare and treatment
- looking after the health of the general public
- managing and planning the work of the hospital and the wider NHS
- training and educating staff
- medical or health services research
- assuring and improving the quality of care and treatment
- ethnic monitoring.
We may need to share information about you with other people involved in your care, such as your GP, dentist, health visitor, community nurse or social worker.
Information may also be used for research projects that have been approved by the local research ethics committee. We will ask for your consent if we need to use information that clearly identifies you. For instance, some research may consider information about named persons and the findings could contribute to their future care.
Sharing information with other organisations
The Royal Marsden has formal, collaborative data sharing arrangements with neighbouring hospitals in the South West London Cancer Network from whom we receive patients. Each organisation manages data to the same high standards and shares it simply to enable and facilitate Sometimes NHS organisations are required to pass on information by law, for example, to assist the police with the prevention and detection of serious crime. However, there have rarely been requests made to The Royal Marsden Hospital.
Some data is collected by central services such as the NHS-Wide Clearing Service, Primary Care Trusts, the Cancer Registry and the Department of Health. This is to help with managing and planning the NHS. The NHS Connecting for Health and the Health and Social Care Information Centre strictly controls further uses of this information. Information held centrally is not used to make any decisions about the treatment or care that you receive from your hospital or GP.
Anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty to keep it confidential.
If at any time you would like to know more about how we use your information, you can speak to the Senior Patient Advisor on 020 7808 2102.
Sharing information with family and friends
It is important that we know with which family members or friends we may share your information with. You can choose one of these as your next-of-kin. When you first attend the hospital and register, we will ask you the name and contact details of your next-of-kin. This person does not need to be related to you but should be able to reflect your wishes at all times, even if you were unable to do so yourself.