Protection of Personal Information

The Information Governance Group at NNUH supports EPA Pathology services in the way it processes or handles information. This covers personal and patient information as well as corporate information.

There are six areas of information Governance:

1. Common law duty of confidentiality
2. Data Protection
3. Freedom of Information
4. Information Security
5. Record Management
6. Data Quality

All NHS employees are bound by the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, placing a legal duty on all staff working for the Trust to keep all information provided to the Trust and themselves as employees of the Trust by its patients completely confidential. This legal obligation is further enforced through the codes of practice of staff respective professions and by virtue of their contract with the Trust.

All staff have a legal obligation to ensure that any confidential information they come into contact with is kept secure and confidential at all times. Where a member of staff receives a request for information relating to an individual, staff must ensure that any disclosure of confidential information is fully justified and in compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018, or Common Law Duty of Confidentiality

All EPA Pathology services staff undertake annual mandatory Information Governance training to ensure they are familiar with the legislation and Trust and departmental policies.

Where necessary the laboratory will have information available for patients and users that includes an explanation of the clinical procedure to be performed to enable informed consent.

The importance of provision of patient and family information, where relevant for example for interpreting genetic examination results, shall be explained to the patient and user.

Please click here for more information on how EPA assures the safety of its patients.
For more information on how each department further assures patient safety click here

Patient consent:

• NOTE – All procedures carried out on a patient need the informed consent of the patient.

For most routine laboratory procedures, consent can be inferred when the patient presents himself or herself at a laboratory, or other suitable area, within a primary or secondary care setting, with a request form and willingly submits to the usual collecting procedure.

The laboratory infers informed consent has been obtained when samples are received. It is the responsibility of the clinician requesting the test to ensure that informed consent has been obtained.

This consent includes notification to third parties where required by law for example under the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010: We are required to notify any infection of public health significance to local public health department as mandated by the regulation. For more information please visit the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010 webpage on Legislation.gov.uk. Please ensure your patient is aware of this before submission of samples for testing.