At this practice the need for the strict confidentiality of personal information about patients is taken very seriously. This document sets out our policy for maintaining confidentiality and all members of the practice team must comply with these safeguards as part of their contract of employment/contract for services with the practice.

 

What personal data do we hold?

To provide you with a high standard of dental care and attention we need to hold personal information about you. This personal data includes: • Your past and current medical and dental condition; personal details such as your age, address, telephone number and your general dental practitioner • Radiographs, clinical photographs, study models • Information about the treatment that we have provided or propose to provide and its cost • Notes of conversations/ incidents about your care, for which a record needs to be kept • Record of consent to treatment • Correspondence relating to you with other healthcare professionals, for example with the hospital

 

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 dental care.

 

How we process the data

We will process personal 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 ceasing to be a patient, for 11 years or for children until age 25.

 

Security of information

Personal information about you is held in the practice’s computer system. The information is not accessible to the public; only authorized members of staff have access to it. Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information routinely.

 

Disclosure of information

To provide proper and safe dental care we may need to disclose personal information about you to: - your general dental practitioner - the hospital or community dental services - to your dental insurance company Disclosure will take place on the ‘need-to-know’ basis, so that only these individuals/ organizations who need to know in order to provide care to you and for proper administration of Government will be given the information. Only that 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 situation, 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.

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If you do not agree If you do not wish personal data that we hold about you to be disclosed or used in the way that is described in this 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.