Southport Road Dental Practice

Data protection: Our Policy

Most of our patient records are kept in hard copy (ie. card files) These contain clinical notes, letters of correspondence and copies of letters of referral, x-rays and possibly photographs, laboratory prescriptions, medical history sheets and contemporaneous notes. Some models may also be retained for future reference. Mr. Ethrington also has a computer database containing personal data and clinical notes, and also an extensive digital picture archive of many patients. Where pictures are retained on the computer, patients will normally be asked to sign a consent form specifically authorisng the retention of such data.

Some patients may have concerns about personal information held at the practice, but be reassured by the fact that we are fully registered with the Data Protection Registrar and conform to the regulations concerning the holding of patient records in all forms under the Data Protection Act.

WE DO NOT under any circumstances, make available any information held about a patient to a third party without the express permission of the patient concerned, and we never make our address database available to companies for the purpose of direct mailing.

As a patient you are entitled to see any information we hold in respect to your patient record. Under the terms of the Act we may make a charge for this, and currently we are able to provide printed or photocopied copies within approximately one week for a charge of £10 to £20.

In general terms, patient information may be regarded as personal information gathered from you during the course of your care and treatment. We are not the only place where this is gathered and stored. Your GP records, hospital case notes and community health services are a few where information will be stored on hard copy and ever increasingly on computer systems. The use of patient information is built on three basic principles. These are 1) informed consent from the patient, 2) a code of confidentiality and 3) respect for the privacy of the patient.

We as essentially a private dental practice, as well as everyone working within the NHS abides by this code of confidentiality which may be summarized as follows: 

1) everyone has a duty to keep information about you confidential

2) anyone who receives information from us is also under a legal duty of confidentiality

3) law strictly controls the sharing of some types of very sensitive information

4) other individuals or agencies to which information is passed legitimately may only use it as authorized for specific purposes 

Other agencies, certainly within the NHS environment may include the local Primary Care Trust, Social Services and the Department of Health, at a local, regional or national level. Whenever possible the statistical information will NOT have any personal details that will allow the identity of an individual to be determined. It may be used for instance to determine local, regional or national treatment patterns and establish resource and financial requirements.

If you have any concerns please contact a member of the practice team.