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.
About us
We are Pearl Dental operating at 11a West End Queensbury BD13 2BD
Narinder Khroud 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.
Our data protection officer, Rachel Flesher 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 data protection officer Rachel Flesher by email at [email protected] or by phone on 01274 880178.
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 and/or any dental plan provider you may be a member of in connection with your dental treatment.
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.
We have CCTV at the practice for the purposes of patient and staff safety.
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/or] 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 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 keep your records for 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. 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 by email to our practice manager Rachel Flesher at [email protected]
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 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).
GDC and CQC
All members of our team are registered with the GDC and are searchable on the GDC register.
Privacy policy
Pearl Dental aims to meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the guidelines on the information Commissioner’s website as well as our progressional guidelines and requirements.
The Data Controller is Narinder Khroud.
This Privacy Notice is available on the practice website at www.pearldentalqueensbury.co.uk or can be requested at Pearl Dental reception by email at [email protected]
Dental practice in Queensbury,Queensbury dental practice …
www.pearldentalqueensbury.co.uk
Pearl Dental is a full general and cosmetic dental practice based in Queensbury providing NHS and private care.We are particularly respected for our cosmetic dentistry treatments including porcelain veneers, smile makeovers, tooth whitening, removable braces, dermal fillers and botox as well as the usual fillings, crowns, bridges and family dentistry.
The categories of data we process are:
•Personal data for the purposes of staff and self-employed team member management
•Personal data for the purposes of [direct mail/email/text/other] marketing
•Special category data including health records for the purposes of the delivery of health care
•Special category data including health records and details of criminal record checks for managing employees and contracted team members
We never pass your personal details to a third party unless we have a contract for them to process data on our behalf and will otherwise keep it confidential. If we intend to refer a patient to another practitioner or to a secondary care such as a hospital we will gain the individual’s permission before the referral is made and the personal data is shared.
•Personal data is stored in digital or hard copy.
•Personal data is obtained when a patient joins the practice, when a patient is referred to the practice and [when a patient subscribes to an email list]
The lawful basis for processing special category data such as patients’ and employees’ health data is:
•Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine, for assessing the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or management of health or social care systems and services on the basis of Union or Member State law or a contract with a health professional
The lawful basis of processing personal data such as name, address, email or phone number is:
•Consent of the data subject
•Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject or to take steps to enter into a contract
The retention period for special data in patient records is a minimum of 10 years and may be longer for complex records in order to meet our legal requirements. The retention period for staff records is 6 years. The retention periods for other personal data is 2 years after it was last processed. Details of other retention periods are available in the Record Retention policy procedure available from the practice.
You have the following personal data rights:
•The right to be informed
•The right of access
•The right to rectification
•The right to erasure (clinical records must be retained for a certain time period)
•The right to restrict processing
•The right to data portability
•The right to object
Further details of these rights can be seen at the Information Commissioner’s website. Here are some practical examples of your rights:
•If you are a patient of the practice you have the right to withdraw consent for important notifications, newsletters, surveys or marketing. You can inform us to correct errors in your personal details or withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or text. You have the right to obtain a free copy of your patient records within one month.
•If you are not a patient of the practice you have the right to withdraw consent for processing personal data, to have a free copy of it within one month, to correct errors in it or to ask us to delete it. You can also withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or
Comments, suggestions and complaints
Please contact Rachel Flesher Pearl Dental 11a West End Queensbury BD13 2BD.
We take complaints very seriously.
If you are unhappy with our response or if you need any advice you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Their telephone number is 0303 123 1113, you can also chat online with an advisor. The ICO can investigate your claim and take action against anyone who’s misused personal data . You can also visit their website for information on how to make a data protection complaint .