IMPORTANT
Sending images to Highgate Group Practice as part of remote consultations
You may be asked to send images to assist the clinician with making a diagnosis or take part in a video consultation. Our patient services staff have been asked by the clinicians to request images to assist with diagnosis when booking some telephone consultations, eg for a skin rash.
For video consultations, and for most requests for images, we use AccuRx, which is a secure, encrypted platform used throughout the NHS. More information on their patient privacy policy is here
You are entitled to a chaperone for video consultations, exactly as you are in face-to-face consultations. Please ask the receptionist when you book, or the clinician at any point in your consultation.
Video consultations are not recorded or stored anywhere. (The only exception to this is if the video consultation is to be used in the doctor’s training, and in this case, your permission will be specifically sought before the consultation starts.)
Any images you send us will be stored securely on your clinical record unless you ask us to remove them. They can be seen only by the staff who have access to your clinical record, all of whom are bound by the same duty of confidentiality as clinicians. We will only store images to assist with your care, and these images can be deleted from your record at any time at your request. If they are sent to the practice by email, they will be deleted from the practice account as soon as they have been transferred to your record. Please send any image as an attachment, rather than embedded in an email, to facilitate this. They will only be shared with other agencies (eg specialists to aid diagnosis) with your express permission.
By sending us these images you are assumed to consent to their secure storage on your clinical record. If you ask for them to be deleted or would rather not provide images in the first place this will not affect your care.
Please do not send images of intimate areas unless expressly requested to do so by a clinician. We appreciate that there are different perceptions of what constitutes an intimate area and if you are at all concerned please discuss this with the clinician involved.
Children and Young People
Children and young people under the age of 16 who have the capacity and understanding to give consent to the use and storage of images may do so, subject to the discussion above but they are strongly encouraged to involve their parents/carers in decision-making. If a child lacks the capacity to consent a person with parental responsibility may consent on their behalf. If the child develops capacity they can, if they wish, ask for the images to be removed from their record in time.
Please do not send any images of intimate areas of a child to the practice under any circumstances.
October 2020.
