Keeping your records 

Repton Dental Surgery complies with the 1998 Data Protection Act and GDPR 2018 and this policy describes our procedures for ensuring that personal information about patients is processed fairly and lawfully.

What personal data do we hold?

In order to provide you with a high standard of dental care and attention, we need to hold personal information about you, this data comprises:

• Your past and current medical and dental condition, personal details such as age, address, telephone number and your general medical practitioner. X-rays, clinical photographs and study models.
• Information about the treatment that we have provided or propose to provide and its cost
• Notes of conversations/incidents that might occur for which a record needs to be kept
• Records of consent to treatment
• Any correspondence relating to you with other health care professionals, for example in the hospital or community service

Why do we hold information?

We need to keep comprehensive and accurate personal data about our patients in order to provide them with safe and appropriate dental care. We also need to process personal data about you in order to provide care.

How we process data

We will process personal data that we hold about you in the following ways.

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Retaining information

We will retain your dental records whilst you are a practice patient and after you cease to be a patient, for at least 11 years, or for children until age 25.

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Security of information

Personal data about you is held in the practice’s computer system and/or in a manual filing system. The information is not accessible to the public and only authorised members of staff have access to it. Our computer system has secure audit trails and we back up information routinely.

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Disclosure of information

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

• Your general medical practitioner
• The hospital/community service
• Other health care professionals

Disclosure will take place on a need to know basis so that only those individuals/organisations that need to know in order to provide care to you and for the proper administration of government will be given the information. Only that information that the recipient needs to know will be disclosed.

In very limited circumstances or when required by law or a court order, personal data may have to be disclosed to a third party not connected with your health care. In all other situations, disclosure will only occur when we have your specific consent.

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Access
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You have the right of access to the data that we hold about you and to receive a copy. Access may be obtained by making a request in writing and the payment of a fee for access of up to £0 for records held on computer or manually. We may require evidence of your identity before being able to comply with the request. We will provide a copy of the record within 1 month of the request and fee and an explanation of your record should you require it.

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If you do not agree

If you do not wish personal data that we hold about you to be disclosed or used in the way that is described in this policy, please discuss the matter with your dentist. You have the right to object but this may affect our ability to provide you with dental care.