Guidance

AAA screening: how we use your personal information

Updated 20 September 2024

Applies to England

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/aaa-screening-how-we-use-personal-information/aaa-screening-how-we-use-your-personal-information--2

It is important that you understand how we use your personal information (sometimes called personal data). Please read this information and let us know straight away if you have any questions or concerns.

As you are registered with a GP, you are entitled to abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) screening as part of the NHS programme in England. This may include contacting you again in the future for further screening if our policy changes. As part of your care we may pass details to NHS healthcare professionals involved in screening or subsequent investigations and treatment. To help us offer a safe and effective screening service, we record information about you and about your visit to the screening clinic in our computer system (the national AAA screening system). This information includes your responses to questions about your health, images of your aorta and measurements that we record at the clinic.

We ask your permission for the following.

  1. To store and keep information about you and your visit to the screening clinic on the national AAA screening system and to use this information to help us offer safe and effective screening.
  2. To screen you for an AAA (which involves an ultrasound scan of your abdomen) and to inform you of the result.
  3. If you are found to have an AAA, to share your personal information with a vascular surgeon through the National Vascular Registry (NVR). We need to do this to make sure men receive timely and high quality treatment if they need it.
  4. To contact you, asking whether you will allow us to use your personal information for research purposes.

Please note, we can only screen you if you agree to points 1, 2 and 3 above.

If you choose not to take up this offer of screening, we will keep a record to demonstrate that we have contacted you, and we may let your GP know that you have not been screened.

For more information about AAA screening see www.nhs.uk/AAA

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