We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our patients either online or in the practice; this policy/notice sets out how we will treat your personal information.

PRIVACY NOTICE FOR PATIENTS

KEEPING YOUR RECORDS SAFELY

This practice complies with the Data Protection Act (1998) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. This means that we will ensure that your information is processed fairly and lawfully.

WHAT PERSONAL DATA DO WE NEED TO HOLD?

In order to provide you with a high stanndard of dental care and attention, we need to hold personal information about you. This personal data comprises:

• Your past and current medical and dental condition, personal details such as your age, NHS number, address, telephone numbers, Email address and your general medical practitioner.
• Radiographs, clinical photographs and study models.
• Information about the treatment that we have provided or propose to provide and its cost.
• Notes of conversations/incidents that might occur for which a record needs to be kept.
• Records of consent to treatment.
• Any correspondance relating to you with other health care professionals, for example your dentist, in the hospital or community services.

 

WHY DO WE HOLD INFORMATION ABOUT YOU?

We need to keep comprehensive and accurate personal data about our patients in order to provide them with safe and appropriate orthodontic care. We also need to process personal data about you in order to provide care under NHS arrangements and to ensure the proper management and administration of the NHS.

HOW WE PROCESS THE DATA

We will process personal data that we hold about you in the following way:

Retaining information

We are required to retain your dental records, X- rays and study models while you are a patient of this practice and after you cease to be a patient, for at least eleven years or until age 25, whichever is the longer.

Security of information

Personal data about you is held in the practice’s closed computer system and in a secure manual filing system. The information is not available to the public and the information is only accessible to authorised personnel. Your personal information is carefully protected by the staff at this practice. All access to information is held securely and can only be accessed by regularly changed passwords. Data is encrypted and computer terminals are closed if unattended. Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information routinely.

Personal information will not be removed from this practice without the patient’s authorised consent, any lab work sent away only has an ID number and surname to avoid personal identification.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

In order to provide proper and safe dental care, we may need to disclose personal information about you to:

Your general medical practitioner.                         The hospital or community dental services.

Other health professionals caring for you.            NHS payment authorities.

The Inland Revenue.                                                  Private dental schemes of which you are member.

Disclosure will take place on a “need to know” basis, so that only those individuals/organisations who need to know in order to provide care to you and for the proper administration of government (whose personnel are covered by strict confidentiality rules) will be given the information. Only that information that the recipient needs to know will be disclosed.

Patients over 14 have the option to list which family members/ other person we can share data with e.g appointments or treatment/medical history.

In very limited circumstances or when recquired by law or a court order, personal data may have to be disclosed to a third party not connected with your health care. In all other situations, disclosure that is not covered by this Code of Practice will only occur when we have your specific consent.Where possible, you will be informed of these requests for disclosure.

Your Rights to Access

You have the right to:

1. Be informed about the personal data we hold and why we hold it.
2. Access a copy of your data that we hold by contacting us directly: Please ask at reception for a SAR form, we will acknowledge your request and supply a response within one month or sooner.
3. Check the information we hold about you is correct and to make corrections if not.
4. Have your data erased in certain circumstances.
5. Transfer your data to someone else if you tell us to do so and it is safe and legal to do so.
6. Tell us not to actively process or update your data in certain circumstances.

How long is the Personal Data stored for?

1. We will store patient data for as long as we are providing care, treatment or recalling patients for further care. We will archive (that is, store it without further action) for as long as is required for legal purposes as recommended by the NHS or other trusted experts recommend.
2. We must store employment data for six years after an employee has left.
3. We must store contractors’ data for seven years after the contract is ended.

What if you are not happy or wish to raise a concern about our data processing?

You can complain in the first instance to our Data Controller -Dr Kornel Csongrady ,our Governance Lead – June Schofield or our DPO Ametros Group email: DPO@ametrosgroup.com Tel. 0330 223 2246

We will do our best to resolve the matter. If this fails, you can complain to the Information Commissioner at www.ico.org.uk/concerns or by calling 0303 123 1113.

Principles of Confidentiality

This practice has adopted the following principles of confidentiality:

Personal information about a patient:

 

• is confidential in respect of that patient and to those providing the patient with health care
• should only be disclosed to those who would be unable to provide effective care and

treatment without that information (the need-to-know concept),and

• such information should not be disclosed to third parties without the consent of the patient

except in certain specific circumstances described in this policy.

 

Disclosures to third parties:

There are certain restricted circumstances in which a dentist may decide to disclose information

to a third party or may be required to disclose by law.

Responsibility for disclosure rests with the patient’s dentist and under no circumstances can any other member of staff make a decision to disclose.

A brief summary is found below.

 

When disclosure is in the public interest

There are certain circumstances where the wider public interest outweighs the rights of the patient to confidentiality. This might include cases where disclosure would prevent a serious future risk to the public or assist in the prevention or prosecution of serious crime.

 

When disclosure can be made

There are circumstances when personal information can be disclosed:

• where expressly the patient has given consent to the disclosure
• where disclosure is necessary for the purpose of enabling someone else to provide health care to the patient and the patient has consented to this sharing of information
• where disclosure is required by statute or is ordered by a court of law
• where disclosure is necessary for a dentist to pursue a bona-fide legal claim against a patient, when disclosure to a solicitor, court or debt collecting agency may be necessary

 

Disclosure of information necessary in order to provide care and for the functioning of the NHS

Information may need to be disclosed to third party organisations to ensure the provision of care and the proper functioning of the NHS. In practical terms this type of disclosure means:

• transmission of claims/information to payment authorities such as the DPD/SDPD/CSA
• in more limited circumstances, disclosure of information to the PCT/HB
• referral of the patient to another dentist or health care provider such as a hospital.

 

General Dental Council

All staff must follow the General Dental Council’s rules for maintaining patient confidentiality contained in Standards for dental professionals and Principles of patient confidentiality.

If confidentiality is breached, each registered dental professional involved is responsible to the Council for their individual conduct.

Cookies

Liability notice
Despite careful checking, we assume no liability for the content of external links. The content of linked pages is the exclusive responsibility of their operators.

Links
This website contains links to other website or social media sites. By clicking on a link that leads to third-party website you acknowledge that these websites have their own privacy policies. Please check the privacy policies when using these website, as we assume no responsibility or liability whatsoever for third-party website.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies. If you already visited the Orthoactive website, you will have alerted the cookies, which may or may not allow you access.

The vast majority of commercial websites use cookies (tiny text files that download to your computer when you visit a website) for a variety of purposes including functional reasons like storing shopping basket items, personalizing content, counting visitors etc. Most cookies, including the ones used here, are harmless.

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies can be used by web servers to identity and track users as they navigate different pages on a website, and to identify users returning to a website.

Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies. A persistent cookie consists of a text file sent by a web server to a web browser, which will be stored by the browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date (unless deleted by the user before the expiry date). A session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies on this website

Google Analytics (by third parties):
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc, (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA; “Google”). The use includes the “Universal Analytics” operating mode. This facilitates the assignment of data, sessions and interactions across several devices to a pseudonymous user ID and thus the analysis of a user’s activities across devices.
Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to allow the website operator to analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transferred to a Google server in the USA and stored there. However, if IP anonymisation is activated on this website, Google will reduce your IP address within Member States of the European Union or in other states party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area beforehand. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. The IP address transmitted by your browser in the context of Google Analytics is not merged with other Google data. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide the website operator with other services related to website and Internet use. Our legitimate interest in data processing also lies in these purposes. The legal basis for the use of Google Analytics is § 15 para. 3 TMG and Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR. The data sent by us and linked to cookies, user-identifiers (e.g. User-IDs) or advertising-identifiers are automatically deleted after 14 months. Data whose retention period has been reached is automatically deleted once a month. For more information on terms of use and data protection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/gb.html or https://policies.google.com/?hl=en.

How we use cookies

Cookies do not contain any information that personally identifies you, but we may use the information we obtain from your use of our cookies for the following purposes:

(1) to recognise your computer when you visit our website;
(2) to improve the website’s usability;
(3) to analyse the use of our website;
(4) in the administration of this website.

 Third party cookies

When you use our website, you may also be sent third party cookies. Our service providers may send you cookies. They may use the information they obtain from your use of their cookies.

 Blocking / Deleting cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

Internet Explorer:

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click “Tools” and then “Internet Options” top right of your user interface
3. Click on “Privacy” tab on top
4. Adapt your desired settings with the controller – all cookies are blocked on top
5. Save your settings

Google Chrome:

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Press on the so-called burger menu (hamburger icon with three parallel horizontal lines) top right
3. Choose “Settings”
4. Click “Show Advanced Settings”
5. Click the “Privacy” tab and open the “Content Settings”
6. In the section “Cookies” you can choose the option “Block sites from setting any data”
7. Save your settings

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Open the Mozilla Firefox browser
2. Press on the so-called burger menu (hamburger icon with three parallel horizontal lines) top right
3. Select “Options”
4. Select the tab “Privacy”
5. Select “Firefox will:” to use custom settings for history
6. Uncheck “Accept cookies”
7. Save your settings

Safari:

1. Open Safari
2. Press the grey gear in the corner top right and click “Preferences”
3. Click the “Privacy” tab
4. Set your preferences to “Always” next to “Block cookies”

Contact us

If you have any questions about our cookies or this Privacy Policy, please contact the practice directly on 01473 462355

We may update this privacy policy from time-to-time by posting a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes.