Data Protection Policy

Keeping Your Records
Our practice complies with the 1998 Data Protection Act and the GDPR amendments, this policy describes our procedures for ensuring that personal information about the patients is processed fairly and lawfully.

Personal Data We Hold
In order to provide you with a high standard of dental care and attention we need to hold information about you. This personal data comprises of:

Your past and current medical and dental condition, personal details e.g. your date of birth, address, contact telephone number and your general medical practitioner details
Radiographs, clinical photographs and study models
Information about the treatment that we have provided or propose to provide and its cost
Records of conversations and incidents that might occur and require records kept
Consent to treatment
Correspondence relating to you with other health providers e.g. hospital or community services.

Why Do We Hold Information About You?
We need to keep comprehensive and accurate personal data in order to provide safe and appropriate care. We need to process information about you in order to provide care under NHS arrangements and to ensure the proper management and administration of the NHS.

How We Process Data
We will process personal data as follows:

We will retain your dental records whilst you are a patient with our practice
We will retain your dental records after you cease to be a patient for at least 11 years of for children until age 25, whichever is the longer
Personal data about you is held on the practice computer system and in a manual filing system. This information is not accessible to the public and only authorised members of the team have access to it
Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information routinely.

In order to provide proper and safe dental care we may need to disclose personal information about you to:

Your General Medical Practitioner
The Hospital or Community Dental Services
Other Health Professionals caring for you
NHS Payment Authorities
Our Private Payment Plan

For further information on confidentiality please contact our Business & Finance Manager, Mark Richards at mark@peppermintdental.co.uk