Privacy

Privacy Notice for Patients

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 practice is responsible for keeping secure the information about you that we hold. Those at the practice who have access to your information include dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment, and the reception staff responsible for the management and administration of the practice.

The practice manager, our data protection officer, ensures that the practice complies with data protection requirements to ensure that we collect, use, store and dispose of your information responsibly. You can contact our practice manager directly at the practice by telephone or email.

Information that we hold

We can only keep and use information for specific reasons set out in the law. If we want to keep and use information about your health, we can only do so in particular circumstances. Below, we describe the information we hold and why, and the lawful basis for collecting and using it.

Contact details

We hold personal information about you including your name, date of birth, national insurance number, NHS number, address, telephone number and email address. This information allows us to fulfil our contract with you to provide appointments. We will also use the information to send you reminders and recall appointments as we have a legitimate interest to ensure your continuing care and to make you aware of our services.

Dental records

We hold information about your dental and general health, including

• Clinical records made by dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment
• X-rays, clinical photographs, 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 you and other health professionals or institutions.

We collect and use this information to allow us to fulfil our contract with you to discuss your treatment options and provide dental care that meets your needs. We also use this information for the legitimate interest of ensuring the quality of the treatment we provide.

Financial information

We hold information about the fees we have charged, the amounts you have paid and some payment details. This information forms part of our contractual obligation to you to provide dental care and allows us to meet legal financial requirements.

Where your dental care is provided under the terms of the NHS, we are required to complete statutory forms to allow payments to be processed. This is an NHS requirement.

How we use 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 share your information with the NHS in connection with your dental treatment and your private dental plan provider if you have one.

We may contact you to conduct patient surveys or to find out if you are happy with the treatment you received for quality control purposes.

We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care. Our usual methods are telephone, email or letter.

We may use your contact details to inform you of products and services available at our Practice.

Where there is CCTV at the practice this is for the purposes of patient and staff safety and detection of crime.

Sharing information

Your information is normally used only by those working at the practice but there may be instances where we need to share it – for example, with:

• Your doctor
• The hospital or community dental services or other health professionals caring for you
• Specialist dental or medical services to which we may refer you
• NHS payment authorities
• The Department for Work and Pensions and its agencies, where you are claiming exemption or remission from NHS charges
• Dental laboratories
• Debt collection agencies
• Private dental schemes of which you are a member

We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary. We will let you know in advance if we send your medical information to another medical provider and we will give you the details of that provider at that time.

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.

Keeping your information safe

We store your personal information securely on our practice computer system and in a manual filing 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. They 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 keep your records for 11 years after the date of your last visit to the Practice or until you reach the age of 25 years, whichever is the longer. At your request, we will delete non-essential information (for example some contact details) before the end of this period.

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. 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 some of the information we hold. For legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment). However, we can, if you ask us to, delete some contact details and other non-clinical information.
• Stop using your information – for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our service. Even if you have given us consent to send you marketing information, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
• Stop using information if you believe the information is inaccurate or you believe we are using your information illegally.
• Supply your information electronically to another dentist.

If we are relying on your consent to use your personal information for a particular purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time, and we will stop using your information for that purpose.

All requests should be made in writing to our practice manager.

If you do not agree

If you do not wish us to use your personal information as described or if you have any concerns about how we use your information, please discuss the matter with the practice in the first instance.

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 in the rare case you feel unable to speak to anyone, you can seek advice from The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Data Opt-Out Policy

How the NHS and care services use your information

Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment. The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:

• Improving the quality and standards of care provided
• Research into the development of new treatments
• Preventing illness and diseases
• Monitoring safety
• Planning services

This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.

Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.

Data being used or shared for purposes beyond individual care does not include your data being shared with insurance companies or used for marketing purposes and data would only be used in this way with your specific agreement.

How you can opt out

You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information, you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt out, your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care. To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters On this web page you will:

• See what is meant by confidential patient information
• Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
• Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
• Understand more about who uses the data
• Find out how your data is protected
• Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
• Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
• See the situations where the opt-out will not apply

You can also find out more about how patient information is used at: www.hra.nhs.uk/information-aboutpatients (which covers health and care research); and www.understandingpatientdata.org.uk/what-you-needknow (which covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made).

You can change your mind about your choice at any time.

NHS Health and care organisations must have systems and processes in place so they can be compliant with the national data opt-out and apply your choice to any confidential patient information they use or share for purposes beyond your individual care.

Our practice only uses your personal health data to provide individualised care to you and does not disclose your data for any other purposes. The national data opt out does not apply to our usage of your data and we are compliant with the policy.