Privacy Policy

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.

Your rights regarding your personal data
You have the following rights in regard to your personal data:
• The right to informed of why we are collecting/holding data about you and how that data will be used.
• The right to access the data.
• The right to have the data we hold about you rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
• The right to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purpose across different services.
• You have the right to object to any instances where a decision is made about you solely by automated means without any human involvement, including profiling.

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 medical 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.

Security of your information
We take our duty to protect your personal information and confidentiality very seriously and are committed to taking reasonable measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of personal data for which it is responsible for. Electronic records are kept in password protected computers. Backups of this data are kept in encrypted hard drives. Paper records are kept in lockable cabinets.

Disclosure of information
To provide proper and safe dental care we may need to disclose personal information about you to your:
• General dental practitioner
• General medical practitioner
• Hospital or community dental services
• Dental insurance company
We also may disclose information to NHS National Services Scotland and to the dentists’ medical defence organisation.
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 it. 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.

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.

Retention periods of the information held
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.

How to access your personal data

You have the right to access the information that we hold about you, and why, subject to any exemptions using a Subject Access Request. Requests must be made in writing and you will need to provide adequate information (full name, address, date of birth, staff number etc) so that your identity can be verified and your personal data located. You need to indicate what information you are requesting to enable us to locate this in an efficient manner.

Data protection notification
We are a ‘data controller’ under the Data Protection Act. We have notified the Information Commissioner that we process personal data and our registration number is ZA233399.
The details are publicly available from the:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow SK9 5AF
www.ico.gov.uk

How to contact us
Email coventrydental.lesmahagow@gmail.com
Address R Coventry Dental Practice,
2 New Trows Road,
Lesmahagow.
ML11 0EW

Phone number 01555 893992