THE VILLAGE DENTISTS
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION
PRIVACY NOTICE
Data Protection Policy - For Patients
The practice complies with the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation and this policy describes our procedures for ensuring that personal information about patients is processed fairly and lawfully.
What personal data do we hold?
In order to provide you with a high standard of dental care and attention, we need to hold personal information about you. This personal data comprises:
- Your past and current medical and dental conditions: personal details such as your age, address, telephone number and your doctor
- 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 correspondence relating to you with other health care professionals for example the Dental hospital or referral to specialist
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 care.
How do we process the data?
We will process personal data that we hold about you in the following way:
Retaining information:
We will retain your dental records while you are a practice patient and after you cease to be a patient for a least eleven years or for children until age 25 whichever is the longer.
Security of information:
Personal data about you is held in the practice's computer system and in a manual filing system. The information is not accessible to the public and only authorised members of staff have access to it. Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information routinely.
Disclosure of information:
In order to provide proper and safe dental care, we may need to disclose personal information about you to:
- Your doctor
- Hospital
- Other health professionals caring for you
- Private dental schemes of which you are a 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 will be given the information.
Only the information that the recipient needs to know will be disclosed.
In very limited circumstances or when required 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.
Access
You have the right of access to the data that we hold about you and to receive a copy. Access may be obtained by making a request in writing and We will provide a copy of the record within 30 days of receipt of the request and and an explanation of your record should you require one.
If you do not agree
If you do not wish your personal data to be disclosed or used in the way described in the Code of Practice please discuss the matter with your dentist. You have the right to object but this may affect our ability to provide you with dental care.