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Not yet on board with basic GDPR principles

Story from nhs.uk

"Not yet on board with basic GDPR principles"

About: Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

I wanted to film my appointment because I have had a bad previous experience. I was told that I could not, I said that I needed the recording incase I wanted to complain, or I wanted to upload it to my blog. I looked at the complaints process and according to it my care-coordinator was right.

The complaints policy seems to be out of date.

LYPFT complaint procedure- The patient may be a vexatious complainant if they are “known to have recorded meetings or conversations without the prior knowledge or consent of the other parties involved.”

GDPR guidelines say consent is not required

Article 2(2c) states that the regulation does not apply for data processing:by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity

The MDU advice column for doctors says-“If a patient insists on recording the consultation, it is inadvisable to refuse to proceed with the consultation. You have a duty to act in their best interests, to assess their condition, and offer any necessary treatment or advice. Conduct the consultation as you normally would to avoid making it more challenging and increasing the possibility of error.

The content of the recording forms part of the patient’s clinical information and is confidential to them, not you. Therefore, the patient could disclose it to third parties, or even use it as evidence for a complaint. Ask for a complete copy of any recordings and keep it in their medical records.”

This Trust thinks that they can wrongly punish patients for doing things that are perfectly within their rights.

Couldn’t even be bothered to update complaint procedure to take into account current accepted practise and GDPR guidance.

I phoned the Information commissioner and they say uploading a personal vlog. It is personal and household activity because I receive no payment.

It is not rocket science, my oncologist at St James let me film our appointment, as long as I did not share his name, and only showed his feet, and gave him a copy.

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Responses

Response from Leeds and York NHS Partnership NHS Foundation Trust 4 years ago
Leeds and York NHS Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 01/08/2019 at 11:47
Published on Care Opinion at 11:47

Thank you for taking the time to post the feedback regarding your experience. I have shared your concerns with Samantha Marshall, Legal Services and Complaints Lead who has provided me with the below response.

“Thank you for raising these concerns with us and I would like to apologise for any distress caused as a result. I would like to respond to your concerns in two parts, as follows:

Recording appointments – You are correct that it is perfectly acceptable for service users to record encounters between themselves and Trust staff. In essence, GDPR / DPA 2018 does not apply, because you are a private citizen recording your own data. I am sorry that the information relayed to you by the member of staff was that you were unable to do so. As a result of the concerns you have raised, I will circulate a lesson learned document that relays this information to all staff and ensures that no one else encounters this.

Complaints procedure – I agree that the bullet point you reference is not an appropriate inclusion on this list as nothing in data protection law makes this an inappropriate action. Thank you for highlighting this to me – its continued inclusion is an oversight on my part. Aside from this, I would like to assure you that the list to which you refer is not exhaustive, nor does one single feature on its own imply that the complaint/complainant will be considered as being in the category of an abusive, persistent or vexatious complaint. An extremely small minority of people will take up a disproportionate amount of staff time and resource when dealing with perceived problems even when explanations have been given and all reasonable attempts have been made to resolve their concerns. It is in these cases, and only as a last resort, will we look to initiate special measures in our contact.

I hope that you are happy with the actions I have agreed to take as a result of your post. If you would like to discuss further, in person, please do not hesitate to contact me at complaints.lypft@nhs.net or call 0113 85 55955.”

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