How we use your personal information (for members of the public who are patients, and who volunteer for medical student examinations)
This page provides information about the use of your personal data if you are a patient who has expressed an interest in volunteering to take part in undergraduate medical student training and assessment. If you are a simulated patient (an actor), please see the privacy statement on this page instead.
The Clinical School uses your personal information for the purposes of organising teaching and assessment for its students. Your contact details will have been provided to us either directly by your clinical care team, or by the Cambridge Postgraduate Medical Centre (PGMC).
In order to facilitate the delivery of clinical examinations in which you choose to assist as a volunteer, it is necessary for us to process sensitive personal information on you, including relevant details of your medical records. This information is held within the Clinical School’s Secure Data Hosting Service (SDHS), subject to very stringent security controls. The Clinical School shares data on patient volunteers with the PGMC, and vice-versa. Medical information held on the SDHS is accessed by a small number of authorised staff in the Clinical School and in the PGMC. Non-sensitive personal data is held on a secure drive, and is accessed by relevant staff in the Clinical School and in the PGMC. The Clinical School also shares your data, as necessary, for the purposes of organising and delivering teaching or assessment for medical students. Some of the individuals we share your data with will be University staff members, but others may be employed by external organisations, such as the NHS.
The Clinical School is responsible for organising patient participation in undergraduate medical examinations; though we share data on patient volunteers with the PGMC, we have no involvement with postgraduate medical examinations. If the Clinical School wishes to approach you about your potential involvement as a volunteer for undergraduate examinations, we will write to you and seek your consent to participate. We will provide you with any relevant information, as well as asking you for further details, if required. Any consent that you give will cover only the particular set of Clinical School examinations that we write to you about. You will able to withdraw your consent at any time, by emailing us at gd285@medschl.cam.ac.uk, calling us on 01223 767182, or writing to us at: School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0SP.
The Clinical School uses your personal information with your consent as described above, and in order to pursue our public interest task in delivering a high quality of education for our students and ensuring that medical students entering the workforce as junior doctors, have met the minimum competency requirements for the profession.
For more information about how we handle your personal information, and your rights under data protection legislation, please see https://www.information-compliance.admin.cam.ac.uk/data-protection/general-data.
