Business Processes - Data Protection Act 1998

1. Input output model (10%)

2. A description of the issue (10%)

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives people the right to access their own health records and the Access to Health Records Act 1990 gives the Personal Representative the right to access the health records of a deceased person. The Data Protection Act 1998 requires that access should be given within 40 days of receiving a request and the fee. However the Department of Health recommend that access should be given within 21 days.

At Harrogate Hospital the applicant requests an application form in writing from the Information Governance Coordinator. The applicant must complete the application form and return it along with a cheque covering the fee to the Information Governance Coordinator to gain access to health records. If the applicant wants access to radiology films they must apply for these separately form the Radiology Secretary. When the application form is returned with the fee the Information Governance Coordinator checks that all sections of the application form are completed and forwards the fee to the Finance Department. They will then send a "Healthcare Professional Checklist" to each consultant involved in the patient's care. The Medical Secretary will get the health records for the consultant to check that there is nothing in them which will cause the applicant physical or mental harm. The consultant will highlight any parts of the health record which need to be withheld from the applicant to the Information Governance Coordinator. Once the Information Governance Coordinator has received all the checklists back they can then have the health records photocopied and send them to the applicant. This all takes up to and over the 21 day recommended time to complete the request for health records.

3. How you explored the issue to understand it better by talking to people and by looking for other information sources. (10%)

To decrease the time between people requesting access to health records and receiving copies of the health records I first needed to fully understand the process to see if there were parts of the process which could be improved. I spoke to some past applicants and spoke to and observed Medical Secretaries, and the Information Governance Coordinator to find out what they were currently doing and what their individual concerns were with the current process.

4. How you looked for ways to improve the situation by analysing the information and data you had collected and you arrived at your conclusions about to change or leave untouched. (20%)

I looked into areas which were delaying the process and looked into ways of either removing them or speeding them up. There were two areas which were identified as slowing down the process. Firstly applicants having to write and request an application form from the Information Governance Coordinator and the Radiology Secretary. If they had one application form which included health records and radiology films this would make the process easier for the applicant. Also if this application form was made widely available such as on the intranet for all staff to send out and on the internet for applicants to download this would save a few days on each request.

Another area which slowed the process down is when the "Healthcare Professional Checklists" are sent out to consultants. The delay was caused by the Medical Secretaries having to collect the health records. this delays the process as they are busy with their day to day work and they were having to wait for the health records to be returned to the Health Records Library each time as they did not which Medical Secretary needed the health records. If the Information Governance Coordinator put a list of which consultants required the health records to complete