We are seeking your consent to pass your details to the NHS Diabetes Register, which has been set up to ensure the highest standard of care for people with diabetes in Scotland. This is a secure electronic NHS database only accessible, for named patient data, to those health care professionals involved in your diabetes care.
The benefit to you is that your care can be co-ordinated in the most efficient manner to produce the best outcomes for your health. For example, the database will be used to call people for their annual diabetes eye check in a service involving taking a digital photograph of the back of the eye and then sending reminders to those who might have forgotten their appointment.
If you are seen in a hospital clinic, or if you move GP practices, your clinician will be able to instantly access your blood tests results and other diabetes related information such as the medications that you are taking. This will help to avoid duplication of tests and examinations and confusion about treatment.
The advantage to the health services is that having a database allows us to monitor the trends of diabetes across Health Boards and to see whether we are meeting agreed standards of care for our patients.
As well as the benefits mentioned above, if you have internet access, by consenting to allow your information to be shared with the database, you can access that information yourself at home via the My Diabetes My Way website at www.mydiabetesmyway.scot.nhs.uk. As well as being a great source of information and advice about diabetes, by accessing the ‘my diabetes’ menu at the top of the website, and clicking on the Register link, you can gain access to information about your own diabetes securely including blood results and retinopathy screening results.
Be aware that you need your 10 digit CHI number in order to register (a unique NHS identifier made up of your date of birth and 4 other numbers. You may find it on any hospital letters or your repeat prescription sheet).
Your records would be kept under the Data Protection Act, 1998 and you are free to see what details are held on the Register at any time and to ask for them to be removed.
We at Bruntsfield Medical Practice, after due consideration of the issues involved, are convinced that the database offers significant benefits for patient care, and we would respectfully ask you to complete the consent form below. You are clearly entitled not to give your consent, and if you do not, your details will not be passed on, but if you have concerns about consenting, please speak first with your usual doctor who will be able to answer your queries.