Patients - your FGM information and how we use it

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is an illegal and extremely harmful practice. It is a form of child abuse and violence against women and girls and the government is working hard to stop this practice.

When you discuss FGM with a health professional, the information you provide will be used in two ways:

• Firstly, to provide you with care and support, and;
• To support work to stop FGM and help prevent it happening to other women and girls. Your identity is removed when your information is used for this purpose.

We collect general information such as your name, date of birth, NHS number and country of origin. This is known as 'personal confidential data'. We also collect information specific to FGM including the type of FGM, your age when FGM occurred, the country where the FGM took place and any family history of FGM.

This information is needed so that we can make sure that the correct data has been collected and that there are no duplicate records. All personal confidential data is removed from the final report before it is published or used.

GPs and other healthcare providers are legally required to provide us with this information.

You can object to your personal confidential information being collected. To do this you must inform your GP and other healthcare providers that you want to stop information that identifies you from being collected. You can also object to your data being used by emailing [email protected].

Find out more about the way your data is managed, including more about how we maintain the confidentiality of information.

You can also find out specifically about the choices you have in the way your information is used.

Keeping your information secure is at the heart of what we do. We comply with all national technical and legal standards regarding data security and confidentiality.

The personal confidential data that identifies you is removed from the FGM information collected before it is used to create the final reports. Also very small numbers in the reports which could identify patients are suppressed (or hidden). The remaining data is combined into a report which is known as 'de-identified aggregate data'. This information is published as an official statistic, complying with UK Statistics Authority rules.

No patient confidential data is ever published or passed to third parties.

You can find the published information here: FGM Reports.