PRIVACY NOTICE.
General Data Protection Regulations, 2018.
(Why we collect your personal data and what we do with it)
When you supply your personal details to Alison Seymour, Eight Branches, they are stored and processed for 3 reasons:
1. We need to collect personal information about your health in order to provide you with the best possible treatment. Your requesting treatment and our agreement to provide that care constitutes a contract. You can, of course, refuse to provide the information, but if you were to do that we would not be able to provide treatment.
2. We have an interest in collecting that information, because without it we couldn’t do our job effectively and safely.
3. We also think that it is important that we can contact you in order to confirm your appointments with us or to update you on matters related to your treatment.
We have a legal obligation to retain your records for 7 years after your most recent appointment (or age 25, if this is longer), but after this period we will delete your records.
Your records are stored on paper, in locked filing cabinets. Occasionally, when you order Chinese herbal medicine, it may be necessary to share your data with a herbal provider. This provider has given us their assurances that they are fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations. This information is shared via email or by an online order form which only the practitioner and the supplier has access to. Access to this data is password protected, and the passwords are changed regularly on our computers. These are password-protected, backed up regularly, and are locked away out of working hours.
We will never share your data with anyone who does not need access without your written consent. Only the following people/agencies will have routine access to your data:
• Your practitioner (Alison Seymour) in order that they can provide you with treatment
• Dispensary staff when ordering Chinese Herbal Medicine to ensure that the correct herbal formula is matched, where possible a code system is used containing initials and the date ordered. There is no access to medical records or sensitive information.
In very exceptional circumstances, for example serious illness of the practitioner, it may be necessary for your personal data to be accessed by another person (but not your medical notes). This is in order to notify you that an appointment will be cancelled. We will ensure that they are fully aware that they must treat that information as confidential, and we will ensure that they sign a non-disclosure agreement.
You have the right to see what personal data of yours we hold, and you can also ask us to correct any factual errors. Provided the legal minimum period has elapsed, you can also ask us to erase your records.
We want you to be confident that we are treating your personal data responsibly, and that we are doing everything we can to make sure that the only people who can access that data have a genuine need to do so.
Of course, if you feel that we are mishandling your personal data in some way, you have the right to complain. Complaints need to be sent to the person who controls your data:
Alison Seymour
21 Bolton Avenue
North Hykeham
Lincoln
LN6 8JA
Email: info@8branches.co.uk
Tel: 07981 428663
If you are not satisfied with our response, then you have the right to raise the matter with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
IMPORTANT UPDATE TO PRIVACY NOTICE:
During the current pandemic, to support NHS Test and Trace (part of the Department for Health and Social Care) in England, we have been mandated by law to collect and keep a limited record of patients and visitors who come onto the premises, for the purpose of contact tracing. By doing this, and by sharing these records with NHS Test and Trace where requested, we can help to identify people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
As a patient/visitor of Eight Branches we will be asked to provide the following basic information:
• your name
• contact phone number
• date of visit, and your arrival and departure times
As the data controller for the collection of your personal data, we will be responsible for compliance with data protection legislation for as long as we hold your information. When that information is requested by the NHS Test and Trace service, at that point they would be responsible for compliance with data protection legislation for that period of time.
The NHS Test and Trace service, as part of safeguarding your personal data, has in place technical, organisational and administrative security measures to protect your personal information that it receives from us, that it holds from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction.
In addition, Alison Seymour’s name will be recorded alongside your information.
NHS Test and Trace have asked us to retain this information for 21 days from the date of your visit, to enable contact tracing to be carried out by NHS Test and Trace during that period. We will only share information with NHS Test and Trace if it is specifically requested by them.
For example, if another patient at the clinic reported symptoms and subsequently tested positive, NHS Test and Trace can request the log of patient/visitor details for a particular time period (for example, over a particular treatment slot, day, two-day period).
Under government guidance, the information we collect may include information which we would not ordinarily collect from you and which we therefore collect only for the purpose of contact tracing. Information of this type will not be used for other purposes, and NHS Test and Trace will not disclose this information to any third party unless required to do so by law (for example, as a result of receiving a court order). In addition, where the information is only collected for the purpose of contact tracing, it will be destroyed by us 21 days after the date of your visit.
However, the government guidance may also cover information that we would usually collect and hold onto as part of ordinary dealings with you (for example, your name, date of birth and phone number). Where this is the case, this information only will continue to be held after 21 days and we will use it as we usually would, unless and until you tell us not to.