Patient Privacy Policy
Practice data protection privacy notice for patients
In providing your dental care and treatment, we will ask for information about you and your health.
Occasionally, we may receive information from other providers who have been involved in providing your care. This privacy notice describes the type of personal information we hold, why we hold it and what we do with it.
Information that we collect
We may collect the following information about you:
• Personal details such as your name, date of birth, national insurance number, NHS number, address, telephone number and email address
• Information about your dental and general health, including – Clinical records, X-rays, and study models, medical and dental histories, treatment plans and consent – Notes of conversations with you about your care and dates of your appointments – Details of any complaints you have made and how these complaints were dealt with – Correspondence with other health professionals or institutions
• Details of the fees we have charged, the amounts you have paid and some payment details The practice owners are responsible for keeping secure the information about you that we hold. Our data protection officer, Hayley Owers, ensures that the practice complies with data protection requirements to ensure that we collect, use, store and dispose of your information responsibly.
Those at the practice who have access to your information include dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment, and the reception staff responsible for the management and administration of the practice.
How we use your information
– To provide you with the dental care and treatment that you need, we require up-to-date and accurate information about you.
– We will share your information with the NHS and Denplan, (if registered with either body), in connection with your dental treatment.
– We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care.
Our usual methods are telephone, email or letter. Please be aware, emails and text messages are not always secure so we will not include personal information about your health, unless you ask us (in writing) to do so.
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 Practice.
Sharing information
Your information is normally used only by those working at the practice and is not passed on to third parties, however, 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
• NHS payment authorities, if you receive NHS treatment
• 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.
We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary. In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information to a third party not connected with your health care, including HMRC or other law enforcement or government agencies.
Keeping your information safe
We store your personal information securely on our practice computer system and in a manual filing system. Your information cannot be accessed by those who do not work at the practice; only those working at the practice have access to your information. They understand their legal responsibility to maintain confidentiality and follow practice procedures to ensure this.
We take precautions to ensure security of the practice premises, the practice filing systems and computers We use high-quality specialist dental software to record and use your personal information safely and effectively. Our computer system has a secure audit trail and we back-up information routinely.
We use cloud computing facilities for storing some of your information. The practice has a rigorous agreement with our provider to ensure that we meet the obligations described in this policy and that we keep your information securely.
We keep your records for 10 years after the date of your last visit to the Practice or until you reach the age of 25 years, whichever is the longer.
Access to your information and other rights
You have a right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy.
You should submit your request to the practice in writing or by email. We do not usually charge you for copies of your information; if we pass on a charge, we will explain the reasons.
You can also request us to
• Correct any information that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete. If we have disclosed that information to a third party, we will let them know about the change
• Erase information we hold although you should be aware that, for legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment)
• Stop using your information – for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our service
• Supply your information electronically to another dentist.
If you do not agree
If you do not wish us to use your personal information as described, you should discuss the matter with your dentist. If you object to the way that we collect and use your information, we may not be able to continue to provide your dental care.
If you have any concerns about how we use your information and you do not feel able to discuss it with your dentist or anyone at the practice, you should contact The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (0303 123 1113 or 01625 545745)
Our website Privacy Policy
We Value your privacy
At Wingham Dental Practice we arere committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.
By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy. If you have any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices please email us at enquiries@winghamdental.co.uk or telephone us on 01227 720284
Who are we?
We are Wingham Dental Practice
Our address is: 66 High Street, Wingham, Canterbury, Kent CT3 1AA
How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about our services, or if you register to receive one of our newsletters.
What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, address, telephone number, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.
How is your information used?
We may use your information to:
- process orders that you have submitted;
- to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
- seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
- notify you of changes to our services;
- process a job application;
- send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns and promotions;
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.
Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us.
If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about our services, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.
We will not contact you by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent.
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: enquiries@winghamdental.co.uk
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us.
We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: enquiries@winghamdental.co.uk or telephone us on 01227 720284
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Wingham Dental practice hold about you (we may charge £10 for information requests) to cover our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.
Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations.
This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
16 or Under
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under.
If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.
Transferring your information outside of Europe
As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU.
These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing.
If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.
Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in May 2018.
Our Cookie Policy
Use of ‘cookies’
Like many other websites, the Wingham Dental Practice website uses cookies.
‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your device and browser preference.
This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.
What types of cookies are there?
Broadly, there are 4 types of cookie:
Strictly necessary cookies: These are cookies that are essential to make a website work and enable features that users have specifically asked for. These types of cookies are commonly used with shopping baskets or e-billing. Without use of cookies, these features of the website could not operate.
Performance cookies: These cookies collect anonymous information about users for the purpose of assessing the performance of a website. Common uses include well-known web analytics tools such as ‘Google Analytics’.
Functionality cookies: These are cookies that automatically remember choices that users have previously made in order to improve their experience next time they visit a website. For example, where users select their preferred settings and layout.
Targeting or Advertising cookies: These cookies are similar to performance cookies, in that they collect information about users’ behaviour. However, this information is used at individual user level to advertise products and services to users on the basis of the behavioural information collected.
What cookies does the Wingham Dental Practice website use?
We use Performance cookies.
We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website which generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies.
The analytics cookies used by our website have the following names:
| Cookie name | Host | Expires |
| _ga | winghamdental.co.uk | 2 Years |
| _gat | winghamdental.co.uk | 1 minute |
| _gid | winghamdental.co.uk | 24 hours |
Our analytics service provider’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
We share our Google Analytics data with our domain administrator, Mickle Creative Solutions to help us provide a better service.
To find out more about Mickle Creative Solutions, you can read their Privacy Policy here https://micklecreative.com/privacy/
These cookies are only used for
- Web analytics — where the data collected is limited to the website operator’s use only, for managing the performance and design of the site.
Your choices regarding cookies
It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences.
For more information on how to delete cookies on your computer or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser.
Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, you might not be able to use all of the features we offer, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.
Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in May 2018.