PRIVACY and CONFIDENTIALITY

WHAT ABOUT MY PRIVACY?

If you choose to complete and return the Questionnaire you will be required to provide some personal information about yourself. This information will be forwarded to the Programme’s assessment team who will use it to respond to you directly in the form of a short report about your risk of bowel cancer, only if you are in a higher than average risk group. If you are in a higher than average risk group, the medical assessment team will recommend that, subject to assessment by a General Practitioner(GP), you consider undertaking a medical procedure used in the prevention of bowel cancer. If you request further information, or you and a GP decide you wish to undergo a medical procedure recommended by the Programme’s medical assessment team, we will provide the completed Questionnaire to the GP to assist them in making a referral. Where the BCPP is informed of the results of any procedure by the colonoscopist to whom the GP referral is directed, the Specialist Medical Assessment Panel will advise you and your GP of the findings and the recommended follow up. To the extent that the law allows, you may request access to your information by contacting the BCPP. From time to time, we may use your information to inform you about the BCPP (and our associated health care providers), unless you tell us not to do so. We will not provide any information about you to anybody else.

WHAT ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY OF PERSONAL AND MEDICAL INFORMATION?

The information received from both your completed questionnaire and any medical procedure/ongoing surveillance that you choose to undertake with a valid GP referral is retained only by the Programme's medical team and is held in confidential files. Test results are available only to the Programme’s Specialist Medical Assessment Panel, you and your General Practitioner. This will again be explained in detail, once you enter the Programme.

SUMMARY

It is important that you note the following:

1.  The Prevention Programme will receive no information about you, unless you provide it.
2.  Information you provide will be held by the Prevention Programme’s medical team and will not be released to anybody without your specific permission.
3.  Should you as part of your participation in the Prevention Programme elect to undergo a medical procedure we will need to communicate your results to your GP who will be involved in any recommended long term surveillance program. We encourage you to discuss the matter with your General Practitioner to help clarify any issues you may have concerns about.