For your clients

Your clinician uses software called Cogent Clinic to help write up their notes and letters. Here is what that means for your information.

Three things matter most, and the rest of this page is detail.

Your clinician is in charge. The software writes a first draft. Your clinician reads it, changes what needs changing, and decides whether to use it. Nothing reaches your record until they have approved it. No decision about your care is made by software.

Your name is taken out before the AI sees anything. Names, phone numbers, NHS numbers, dates of birth, email addresses and postcodes are replaced with placeholders first, and your clinician checks that before anything is sent. The AI sees "the client" where your name would be.

Recording a session is optional. Your clinician will ask before recording one, and you can say no, or change your mind later, without it affecting your care in any way.

Who holds your record

Your clinician does. They decide what goes in it, who sees it, and how long it is kept. Cogent Clinic is the company that makes their software and acts on their instructions, which in data-protection law makes your clinician the controller and Cogent Clinic the processor.

So if you have a question about your record, start with your clinician. They hold it, and they can pass on anything that turns out to be about the software.

Your clinician keeps a record of your care because they are a registered health professional with a duty of confidentiality, and keeping an accurate record is part of treating you. They do not need your permission to do that, and their professional obligations require it. Recording a session is different, and that does need your agreement.

About recording a session

If your clinician wants to record a session so it can be written up, they will explain it and ask you first. You can refuse, and you can withdraw your agreement at any time. Neither affects your care.

Withdrawing your agreement does not delete notes your clinician has already written. If a session was recorded and you would like the recording deleted, ask your clinician. They control it and they can delete it.

During a recording, the audio goes straight from your clinician's browser to a speech-to-text company in the European Union. It does not pass through Cogent Clinic's own systems, and that company keeps no audio once the session ends. Because the European Economic Area is covered by the UK's adequacy rules, no extra transfer safeguards are needed.

If you would like something to read or sign beforehand, your clinician can give you a printed consent form.

What the software does

It drafts documents and keeps your clinician's notes organised. It does not diagnose you, choose your treatment, or predict anything about you.

If your clinician shares something with you that was drafted with AI help, they will say so, and you can ask them about it.

What is kept, and where

What is stored sits on UK systems, encrypted, with access limited to a small number of authorised people and every access recorded.

Two things are worth being straight about. The list that links a placeholder back to your real name is stored by Cogent Clinic, and so is any saved session transcript. Cogent Clinic can technically unlock those under the controls above, so nobody is claiming it would be impossible for anyone there to read them. What is true is that your name is removed before text reaches the AI, and that access to anything stored is restricted and logged.

The AI companies involved are contractually barred from using your clinician's content to train their systems, and Cogent Clinic does not use it to train anything of its own.

Information about you that may be involved:

• what your clinician writes or dictates about you, with your name and other direct identifiers replaced by placeholders
• the audio of a session, where you have agreed to it being recorded
• the transcript of that audio, stored encrypted on UK systems
• your clinician's working notes, formulation and treatment plan, referring to you by placeholder rather than by name where possible

Your address, full date of birth, NHS number, full email address, full phone number and full name are not routinely processed. Where your clinician types them in, they are replaced with placeholders before the AI sees anything.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• be told how your information is used, which is what this page is for
• see a copy of what is held about you
• have something corrected if it is wrong
• have information erased, in some circumstances
• restrict how it is used, in some circumstances
• object to some uses of it
• receive an electronic copy to take elsewhere
• complain

Start with your clinician. They decide what is in your record, who can see it, and how long it is kept, so they are the right person to answer. They will involve Cogent Clinic if something needs doing on their behalf.

If you want to complain, raise it with your clinician first. They must acknowledge it within the time the law allows and respond without undue delay. If you are not happy with how they handle it, you can take it to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/concerns or on 0303 123 1113.

If something goes wrong

If Cogent Clinic finds a security problem that might affect your information, it tells your clinician within 24 hours of knowing about it. Your clinician then decides whether and how to tell you.

If your clinician makes a clinical decision after reading a draft, that decision is theirs. The software writes; it does not judge.

If you would like more

There is a longer, everyday walk-through of how your clinician uses this at cogent.clinic/for-clients. The Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement elsewhere in this Trust Centre set out the same arrangements in legal terms, if that is what you are after.

Questions

About your record: your clinician.

About the software: privacy@cogent.clinic

Cogent Clinic Ltd is registered in Scotland and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office. If anything on this page changes in a way that affects you, it will be updated here and your clinician will be told.