Data Protection Policy
We, Hilsea Dental Practice, comply with all rules and regulation of data protection and follow the guidelines of data protection Act 1998. We have robust policy to make sure that we follow the procedures for ensuring that personal information of all 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 our patients. Personal data comprises:
• Your past and current medical and dental conditions; personal details such as your age, address, telephone number, email 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 correspondence relating to you with other health care professionals, like your referring practitioner or general medical practitioners.
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 effective, safe and appropriate dental care.
How we process the data
We will process personal data that we hold about you in the following way:
Retaining of information
We will retain your dental records while you are a patient of this practice and for fourteen years after you cease to be a patient 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 referring practitioner
• Your general medical practitioner
• The hospital or community dental services
• 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 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.
In very special 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.