Guidance

AAA screening: how we use your personal information (sometimes called personal data)

Updated 28 March 2025

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. Please read this card 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 will: 

  1. store and keep information about you and your visit to the screening clinic on the national AAA screening system and use this information to help us offer safe and effective screening.

  2. share your personal information with a vascular surgeon through the National Vascular Registry (NVR) if you are found to have an AAA. We need to do this to make sure men receive timely and high-quality treatment if they need it.

  3. ask whether you will allow us to use your personal information for research purposes.

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. 

See NHS.UK for more information on AAA screening: www.nhs.uk/aaa.

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