Political letter from my gp telling who to vote for

[FluffyJellyCat]

Is this even allowed? The gp isn't wrong in what he is saying. But how did he get my personal data to write to me? It's a proper letter addressed to me at my address. Could he access my data for a local election?

Conflict of interest? Gdpr? I'm not going to complain because I have enought going on in my life. But surely this isn't allowed?

What next? The schools head telling me who to vote for?

A GP in my area is standing for election for one of the big parties. I wonder if it’s them?

It's not perfectly legitimate action! It's a beach of the data protection act. And it's not up to OP to prove where they got her details from, because that is impossible for her to know. It's completely within her rights to register a complaint so that it can be investigated. Stop acting like you wrote the data protection act and know everything when you clearly have no idea.

Local party agent - Right we need someone to write to local residents about appalling state of NHS and endorse our candidate ... needs to be someone they'll respect and who has knowledge about NHS...

Consults membership list... aha Dr. Bloggs local GP excellent just drop him an email to ask if we can draft something for him to put his name to..

Great he said yes, write letter get him to check it over... time for a mail merge and envelope stuffing session... Off it all goes to the sorting office..... NHS... TICK

Next... education... hmmm ... consults membership list - aha... Ms. Jones is a teacher.....

And so it goes on. I very much doubt that your GP is going through the surgery records and writing you all letters...

I think that's out of order and would complain. My former union used to do that do I changed to another one!

I will be voting for the party that instructs the GPs to actually see their patients!!

How many times a month do you complain on average?

No, the NHS is in a mess for a variety of reasons - and I wouldn’t be listening to a GP telling me who I should vote for. I’d complain.

I really hate the term Karen but this thread …

I've got letters from local GP in the post too. Not registered with them (multiple GPs in the area). Just a party member/electoral roll thing.

Why would they risk major legal strife by breaking GDPR (which superceded the Data Protection Act) by using their own records, when they can get the information perfectly legally via the electoral roll?

It's probably an election communication from the party and they have obtained an endorsement from a local GP (which they've agreed to be used publicly) and it happens to be your GP.

The Lib Dems have been doing this in my area, and approached a GP friend of mine and he refused to do it!

You know there have been several MPs that are GPs?
Why should they not be allowed to stand for public office?

If it is a formal election communication it will say so somewhere on the letter "Published by ..." I think this is the most likely scenario.

I'm sorry, this is a terrible take. Of course medical professionals are allowed to express their political views in public. Politics isn't a dirty word, it's how we participate in our society. We have a secret ballot so we have no need whatsoever to vote how anyone tells us to whatever perceived power they have.

GP? What’s one of those? The ones in my area have been MIA for the last 4 years!!! I literally haven’t been able to get an appointment for years so I would be mightily pissed off if they sent me a letter like this.

The gp may be a member of a local party, and has written a letter in his own name as a supporter, the party have then mailed this to the address list which they can access. Its not likely to be anything untoward.

Prove it's a breach of GDPR. The thread has already identified legitimate sources of this data and legally acceptable reasons for doing it.

Why is it that 99% of the time on MN when someone's spouting off about GDPR they have absolutely no idea what that means or what the regulations and guideline prohibit and allow?

Terrible, I thought I had a letter from a reform candidate telling me to vote Tory instead of them (not that they were an option) and in the small print says promotion by the Tory candidate. I would normally vote Tory but not this time after such a misleading letter.

Makes me want to vote the opposite way when people keep telling you, who to vote. Why don't people mind their own business

Why is it any different from a GP to send out a political endorsement vs the many other local people endorsing candidates, canvassing etc? Those people are accountants, teachers, doctors etc too. Our local candidate's got a criminal barrister out in support.

This is such a non point. In the uk we have free speech.

If you read the comment you're replying to you'll see there is absolutely no reason to believe anyone has breached Data Protection. Sure, maybe the GP is incredibly stupid and has used patient records in this way. But we have 3 pages here of people very patiently explaining the more likely scenario.

Very unreasonable and there are laws against it

Sorry but your last paragraph is hilarious 😂 obviously the candidate wants to tell you how to vote (shouldn't be misleadingly though I agree). Wouldn't make a very good candidate if he just minded his own business

There are some amazingly - ahem - naive people on this thread.

They will have got the data from the electoral register. They won't have used their own systems.