Data Protection Policy

Privacy Notice for Patients

How we use your personal  information

This notice tells you why Erica R Jones collects information about you and/or your child and how this information may be used.

As a health care professional, who provide your care, maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received here or previously. These records help provide you with the best possible health care. Your records are electronic and on paper and I use a combination of working practices and technology to ensure your information is kept confidential and secure. Records which this clinic holds about you may include the following information:

• Details about you, such as your address, contact details, previous medical history and previous investigations
• Any contact with the clinic has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, advice given over the phone or email, emergency appointments etc.
• Notes about your and/or your child’s health
• Details about your and/or your child’s treatment and care
• Relevant information from other health care professionals

Information may be used within the clinic for clinical audit purposes to monitor the quality of the services we provide. All of your information is held securely on our premises and may be used for statistical purposes. Where we do this, we take strict measures to ensure that individual patients cannot be identified.

How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records

I am and any practitioners contracted by me are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:

• General Data Protection Rules 2018
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
• General Chiropractic Council Code of Conduct

Staff members who work with or for me at Prioryfield House Business Centre and/or subcontracted receptionist have a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential. We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information against accidental loss or disclosure, alteration, unauthorised access, destruction or abuse. We have implemented processes to guard against such. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.  

Who do we share your information with?

We only ever pass on information about you to others, if there is a genuine need for it and you have given your consent. This may be your GP, dentist or other health care professionals, a solicitor or for court proceedings.
We will not disclose any information about you to any third party without your written permission or in case of a child’s information the parental consent, unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), where the law requires information to be passed on and/or in accordance with the Caldicott principles.

Access to your personal information

You have a right under the General Data Protection Rules 2018 to request access to view or obtain copies of what information that Erica Jones holds about you and to have it amended should it be inaccurate. In order to request this you need to do the following:

Your request must be made in writing to the clinic
There is no charge for copies of your file
We are required to respond to you within 30 days
You will need to give us proof of name (Photo ID) so that your identity can be verified

How long we keep your data for

In line with data protection principles, we only keep your data for as long as we need it. We are legally required, by the Chiropractic regulator, to keep this data for eight years after your time as a patient has ended. Or in case of children until their 25th birthday. To determine the any appropriate retention period for personal data beyond eight years we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.

Once we no longer have a lawful use for retaining your information, we will dispose of it in a secure manner than maintains data security.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. 

Right to withdraw consent

Where you have provided consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. There will be no consequences for withdrawing your consent. However, we have a legal undertaking to retain your patient file for a minimum of 8 years as laid out by the General Chiropractic Council code of conduct and there can be a ligitimate interest in keeping it longer.

Objections/Complaints

Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the clinic, please contact the Clinic Owner Erica Jones. If your concerns are not addressed you can then complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office via their website (www.ico.gov.uk)

Change of details

 It is important that you tell the clinic if any of your details such as your name or address have changed or if any of your details such as date of birth is incorrect in order for us to correct it.

Notification & Data Controller

Erica Jones is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as the Data Controller.