This practice 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 professional guidelines and requirements.
EU general data protection regulation: under GDPR we will ensure that your personal information we hold about you will be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely
The Data Controller and Information Governance Lead is Elisa Agudo. This Privacy Notice is available by email if you contact reception@linkhousecentre.co.uk or by calling 01273 044990. You will be asked to provide personal information when joining the practice. The purpose of us processing this data is to provide optimum health care to you.
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 and email 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 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 obtained when a patient joins the practice, when a patient is referred to the practice and when a patient subscribes to a direct mail or email marketing 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.
Processing is necessary for your legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is a good reason to protect the individual’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.
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 period for other personal data is 2 years after it was last processed. Details of other retention periods are available in the Record Retention 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 in our Information Governance Procedures or 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 text.
For comments, suggestions and complaints please contact Elisa Agudo at the practice at reception@linkhousecentre.co.uk or 01273 044990 or by writing to or visiting the practice at Link House Specialist Dental Centre, Link House, Link Place, Upper Hollingdean Road, BN1 7DU.
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.
You can also use these contact details to request copies of the following practice policies or procedures:
- Data Protection and Information Security Policy, Consent Policy
- Privacy Impact Assessment, Information Governance Procedures
Cookies
Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.
For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org
You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above websites tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.
Data Breaches
In the event of a “high risk” personal data breach the individual(s) will be notified immediately within 72 hours as well as the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). Our company and staff shall follow our security protocols in line with our “Data Breach” company policy as well as the ICO guidelines and take all necessary precautions in order to minimise the severity of the breach for the individual. All personal data breach shall be recorded in our data breach register.