Garstang Dental Referral Practice takes great care to protect the personal data we hold for our patients and aims to meet the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR], the guidelines on the Information Commissioner’s website as well as our professional guidelines and requirements.
In providing your dental care and treatment, we will ask for information about you and your health. Occasionally, we may receive information from other providers who have been involved in providing your care. This privacy notice describes the type of personal information we hold, why we hold it and what we do with it.
The purpose of collecting and storing personal data about you is to ensure we can:
- Provide appropriate, safe and effective dental advice, treatment and care
- Undertake the administration aspects of your care in the most effective and efficient way
- For teaching and training other dental health professionals
- For research purposes for example longevity of treatments, effect of treatment on quality of life
Portman Dental Care as Practice Owners, are responsible for keeping secure the information about you that the Practice holds relating to the provision of your care at Garstang Dental Referral Practice. Those at the Practice who have access to your information include dentists and other dental professionals (dental nurses, dental technicians) involved with your care and treatment and the reception staff responsible for the administration of the Practice. These team members have been provided with training about data protection and how to keep information about you secure.
In addition, the dentist(s) providing your treatment may also hold information about your treatment such as letters written, procedures undertaken, clinical photographs or videos taken that may be used for teaching and training purposes as well as for auditing their work.
Information that the Practice processes
We may process (obtain, use, store, secure, disclose or destroy) the following information about you:
- Personal details such as your name, date of birth, address, telephone number, email address, occupation, next of kin details/person to contact in the event of an emergency
- Information about your dental and general health, including:
- Clinical records made by dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment
- GP contact details
- X-ray pictures, clinical photographs, videos, digital scans of your mouth and teeth and study models
- Medical and dental histories
- Treatment plans and consent
- Notes of conversations with you about your care
- Dates of your appointments
- Details of any complaints you have made and how these complaints were dealt with
- Correspondence with other health professionals or institutions
- Details of the fees we have charged, the amounts you have paid, payment details, debit/credit card receipts
The legal basis on which we process your information is contractual for the provision of healthcare.
The legal basis on which we process your information for teaching and training other dental health professionals is consent.
How the Practice uses your information
To provide you with the dental care and treatment that you need, we require up-to-date and accurate information about you.
We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care. Our usual methods are telephone, letter or email.
If your information is used for dental research or dental education, depending on the purpose and if possible, we will anonymise your information. If this is not possible, we will inform you and discuss your options.
We may use your contact details to inform you of products and services available at our Practice.
When the Practice needs to share your information
Your information is normally used only by those working at the Practice, but there may be instances where we need to share it to enable us to deliver a service to you. For example with:
- Your doctor
- The hospital or community dental services or other health professionals caring for you
- Dental laboratories fabricating restorations for you
- Insurance companies
- In the event of a possible sale of the Practice at some time in the future
We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary.
In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information to a third party not connected with your health care including HMRC or other law enforcement or government agencies.
How the Practice keeps your information safe
The Practice stores your personal information securely either in a manual filing system or on our Practice computer system. Your information cannot be accessed by those who do not work at the Practice. Only those working at the Practice have access to your information and understand their legal responsibility to maintain confidentiality and follow Practice procedures to ensure this.
We take precautions to ensure security of the Practice premises, the Practice filing systems and computers. We use high-quality specialist dental software to record and use your personal information safely and effectively. Our computer system has a secure audit trail and we back-up information routinely.
We use cloud computing facilities for storing some of your information. The Practice has a rigorous agreement with our provider to ensure that we meet the obligations described in this policy and that we keep your information securely.
Each individual dentist is personally responsible for securely storing any information they process about you.
The Practice keeps your records for a minimum of 10 years after the date of your last visit to the Practice or until you reach the age of 25 years, whichever is the longer. In some cases, we keep records longer than 10 years. This is subject to an individual assessment of the records and is based on the complexity of the treatment that has been provided.
If any of your information is used for research, teaching or training purposes, it may be stored for longer than 10 years.
Access to your information and other rights
You have a right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy. You should submit your request to the Practice in writing or by email. We do not usually charge you for copies of your information. If we pass on a charge, we will explain the reasons.
You can also request us to:
- Correct any information that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete. If we have disclosed that information to a third party, we will let them know about the change
- Erase information we hold although you should be aware that, for legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment)
- Stop using your information – for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our service
- Supply your information electronically to another dentist.
If you do not agree
If you do not wish us to use your personal information as described, you should discuss the matter with your treating dentist. If you object to the way that we collect and use your information, we may not be able to continue to provide your dental care.
If you have any concerns about how we use your information and you do not feel able to discuss it with your dentist or anyone at the Practice, you should contact The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (0303 123 1113 or 01625 545745).
This Privacy Notice will be reviewed annually or sooner to reflect any changes in regulations.
Last updated May 2019
