I handed in a subject access request to GP surgery on 29th August. Heard nothing, think maybe they are being deliberately obstructive .
Went in on Saturday for flue jab, the techy man, supposedly deals with all computer queries was there. He asked if I have had success adding daughter to MY GP app as dependant, I said your joking. Then I told him I had requested any and all records via a SAR on 29th August and haven't received the requested information, he said I'll chase that up Monday (9th) have heard nothing. Are they now beyond the suggested timescale.
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Polo22
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Hi, I work in this area and have taken the below from the ICO website who govern this area:
You must comply with a SAR without undue delay and at the latest within one month of receiving the request. You can extend the time to respond by a further two months if the request is complex or you have received a number of requests from the individual, eg other types of requests relating to individuals’ rights.
So if it’s a complex one, it can be up to 3 months.
You work in this area and have PA/B12D. I do hope you are a member of the PA Society. Your knowledge in this area is needed both on here and possibly the Society too.
Love this, everything is numbers and patterns your right it is so beautiful. Sad that people don't realise just how amazing nature and life is, husband is a bit of an astro physics freak, he would have loved to have continued and got his PHD. He first introduced me to this fascinating , hurricanes , galaxies, flowers even DNA all follow the same sequence the Golden ratio, we are all fabulously beautifully complex and made of stardust
Your hubbie sounds like a dude. My boss once asked had I put sugar in their tea.
Yes, I stirred it 20 times anti-clockwise.
A person once complained that I was late meeting them. I apologised then said, I’ll always be late. They commented on how impolite it was.
I explained, ‘The light from the sun takes 8 minutes to travel and hit your retinas for you to see me standing in front of you.’
Some people are receptive whilst others think I am being obtuse. Meh, shrug. My biggest challenge is convincing Darth Vader and Chewbacca to do housework. Useless the pair of them. 😂🤣
I wish in my younger days I’d had the courage to say ‘I’ll always be late’. Might not have been the expected response but it would have saved me so much stress. 😂
Yes, we can put so much pressure on ourselves. Must do this by this time. Must wear this, it has to be clean and ironed. Must have hair cut and styled. I have always thought outside the box.
My female friends thought it hysterical that I would target a single young man in smart clothing with a bag. I would throw a teaspoon on the ground. Then say, ‘Oh excuse me, that had just fallen out of your bag.’
The unsuspecting man would be embarrassed, pick it up quickly, stuff it into their pocket. Then say, THANK YOU.
Fibonacci sequence, everywhere in nature, is also present in building: in particular found in mediaeval cathedrals. The golden ratio - with Mother Nature as architect.
Sallyfr is there any requirement to acknowledge receipt of the request and explain to the subject that it is a complex enquiry that will need longer to fulfil?
Hi, in my organisation we acknowledge requests because we also check people’s identity at this stage. I have just checked the ICO guidance on the website and it doesn’t explicitly say you must. It will be good practice though. If it is identified that you can’t respond within the month, you should update the requester on the progress and let them know what is happening with it.
You can request to the GP surgery what they hold about about.
They can limit what they supply if they have reasons that fit within the data protection act. These are varied and the surgery will need to explain why they have withheld data. Summaries are fine to give.
At some point the whole of the NHS will be digital. Where I work not all departments are yet. Old paper files are sent to an archive facility off site, but they can be retrieved very quickly as long as they were correctly stored and the box correctly labelled!
I smiled at the ‘techy man’. Techy people covers a multitude of sins from data entry, to records management, to updating software, to fixing hardware, to data analysis, to software engineering, to systems analysis.
Erm, we use geek speak, ‘Yes, just some organic grounding’.
It means we have electrocuted ourselves. We are trying to get the machines to do what we ask and forgot about Health and Safety for a minute. Oops, that’s got a live current.
Hi Polo22, your surgery should've contacted you at the latest by the last day of a month after receiving your request - either to fully address it by then OR to advise you that they needed up to a further 2 months. i.e. under the Data Protection Act 2018, they are obliged to contact you a within a month. BUT, the ICO is likely to do ZILCH regarding it; talk about NO TEETH as regards smaller organisations - the ICO admits it's non-judgemental - and will always give them the benefit of the doubt - to encourage change!
The ICO goes so lightly on NHS bodies if you do end up making a complaint - and, in my case, talk about lack of integrity! - the organisation's (lazy) Data Protection Officer (DPO) fobbed the ICO off with false info - which the ICO believed and closed my 2 cases! I'm so disgusted with both the organisation AND the ICO! And - to add salt to the wound, I NEVER received the data, despite the DPO confirming there were no exemptions from disclosing! And the ICO's response (when my 2nd complaint reinforced the fact that the organisation hadn't changed their practices and still hadn't got the fundamentals right re: Data Protection) was - 1) "we're only obliged to investigate to a reasonable degree" - and for the 2nd complaint, the ICO didn't even address it correctly! So, the organisation continues to breach DP law, unabated!
Whilst there shouldn't be a charge for it currently, IF you've asked for ALL of your personal data held by the surgery, they may deem it excessive? - and could query/ask you to specify EXACTLY what you were seeking, in order to reduce the time/resource involved? Or apply a charge? [Years ago (2012), when I moved address/surgery, I requested all of mine and, at the time, (pre GDPR/DPA'18) they charged 35p per sheet of paper - they applied the full £50 charge then (despite the no. of sheets not equalling that amount)].
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