Who we are

Our website address is: http://familydentalcare.org.uk.

Privacy Policy

Family Dental Care is committed to ensuring the security of personal data held by the practice. The practice aims to meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the guidelines on the information Commissioner’s website. This Privacy Policy explains what Personal Data the practice holds, why we hold and process it, who we might share it with, and your rights and freedoms under the Law.

What information do we collect?

We may collect the following kinds of information about you:

  • Personal details such as your name, date of  birth, gender, national insurance number, NHS number, address, telephone number, email address, occupation
  • Information about your dental and general health, including clinical records made by dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment
  • X-rays, clinical photographs, digital scans of your mouth and teeth, and study models
  • Medical and dental histories 
  • Treatment plans and consent 
  • Notes of conversations with you about your care
  • Correspondence from other health professionals or institutions involved in your care
  • Details of the fees we have charged, payments exemptions (NHS), the amounts you have paid and some payment details
  • Feedback and complaints  
  • CCTV- images used for crime prevention, detection, satefy and security of staff and patients
  • Online profile and social media information and activity, based on your interaction with us and
  • Our websites, including for example Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform; and
  • Statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns – including the full URL clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page 

How we obtain information

  • You may give us information about you through the following:
  • Filling in forms at our practices or on our websites. 
  • Corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise.
  • Through the technology you use to access our services 

Information we receive from third parties – This includes information you provide when you visit our websites, for the purpose of booking an appointment with a dentist at Portman Healthcare clinics, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site and when you report a problem with our site. 

Cookies

Our website, like many others, uses third party cookies, helping us improve the performance of our website and digital marketing, to provide you with a better user experience. 

These cookies monitor activity throughout our website using third-party providers – Mediahawk and Google. We track which sources are effective at helping visitors find our website and make calls to us, navigation journeys throughout, and pages visited. We may use IP addresses, geo-location data and caller telephone numbers.

What are ‘cookies’?

‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the website browser (for example, Internet Explorer or Safari) on your computer or mobile device. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work in a better, more efficient way. They can do this because websites use them to recognise you and remember important information that will make your use of a website more convenient. 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.  

How we use your information – the purpose

We may use this information to:

  • To provide you with the dental care and treatment that you need, we require up-to-date and accurate information about you. 
  • We may contact you to conduct patient surveys or to find out if you are happy with the treatment you received for quality control purposes.
  • We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care. Our usual methods are SMS, telephone, email or letter. 

If we wish to use your information for dental research or dental education, we will discuss this with you and seek your consent. Depending on the purpose and if possible, we will anonymise your information. If this is not possible we will inform you and discuss your options. We may use your contact details to inform you of products and services available at our practices. We have CCTV surveillance system in our practice for the purposes of safety and security of patients and staff.  

Sharing your information

Your information is normally used only by those working at the practice but there may be instances where we need to share it – for example, with: Your doctor, The hospital or community dental services or other health professionals caring for you, Dental laboratories, NHS payment authorities, The Department for Work and Pensions and its agencies, where you are claiming exemption or remission from NHS charges, Private dental schemes of which you are a member, Debt collection companies

We also share your information with third parties in order to deliver the following services to you: e.g. Managing new enquiries from our website, Contacting you to check if you wish to remain a client of ours, Sending reminders for your dental appointments, Processing on-line booking appointments, Collecting feedback from our patients, Managing email communications to our patients, Providing troubleshooting and support services for our various IT systems

We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary. We also have third party agreements in place to protect your information.

In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information which may include CCTV images to a third party not connected with your health care, including law enforcement, government agencies or HMRC. 

Some of your information may be transferred out of the European Economic Area (EEA), primarily for creating medical devices such as crowns.Where information is transferred outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), we require that appropriate safeguards are in place and we use contracts that require the recipient to protect your Personal Data to the same standards as it would be within the EEA 

How we will keep your information confidential and safe 

We employ administrative, electronic and physical security measures to ensure that the information that we collect about you is protected from access by unauthorised persons and protected against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. 

This includes:

Password protection, Locked cabinets/rooms, Practice security systems (including CCTV), Virus protection, Secure servers , Back-up facilities and Secure cloud-based storage

Everyone working in the NHS is subject to the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality. Information provided in confidence will only be used for the purposes advised with consent given by the patient, unless there are other circumstances covered by law. The NHS Digital Code of Practice on Confidential Information applies to all our staff and they are required to protect you information, inform you of how your information will be used, and allow you to decide if and how your information can be shared. All our staff are expected to make sure that information is kept confidential and receive training on how to do this.
These records may be electronic, on paper or a mixture of both and we use a combination of working practices and technologies to ensure that your information is kept confidential and secure. Your electronic records are backed up securely in line with NHS standard procedures. We ensure that the information we hold is kept in secure locations, is protected by appropriate security and access is restricted to authorised personnel. We also make sure that external data processors that support us are legally and contractually bound to operate and prove security arrangements are in place where data that could or does identify a person are processed.
We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:
Data Protection Act 1998
General Data Protection Regulation 2018
Human Rights Act
Common Law Duty of Confidentiality
NHS Codes of Confidentiality and Information Security
Health and Social Care Act 2015

 

How long will we keep your information? 

We keep your dental records for 10 years after the date of your last visit.

There are a number of other documents that we may collect that have a variety of retention dates, for example the NHS PR form – used to declare payment exemptions – which needs to be kept for 2 years. We have a retention schedule listing all documents and the timeframes for disposal. Retention periods may be changed from time to time based on business or legal and regulatory requirements

Your rights

Access– You have a right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy. You can make a request by contacting your practice or by e-mailing dentali@doctor.com
Any Subject Access Request (SAR) will be dealt with promptly. Data protection law requires us to respond to a request for personal data within one calendar month. For CCTV footage requests, recordings are kept for 24 days so this data will be limited to any footage within this timeframe. Should you request a SAR please email us for a request form.

Rectification– You have a right to correct any information that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact your practice to request a change in information.

Erasure– You have a right to request that we delete your personal information, although you should be aware that, for legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment). Please contact your practice to make this request.

Restriction– You have the right to request us to restrict the processing of your personal information for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our service. Please contact your practice to make this request.

Portability– You have a right to data portability, this could include supplying your information to another dentist. Please contact your practice to make this request. 

Concerns

If you have any concerns about how Family Dental Care’s  use your information and you do not feel able to discuss it with your dentist or anyone at the practice, you can contact our Data Protection Officer via email at dentali@doctor.com

You can also seek advice from The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, or start a live chat