Privacy Notice for Patients – Children & Adults

How we use your personal  information

This notice tells you why Natural Back Health (NBH) collects information about you and/or your child and how this information may be used.

As a health care professional, who provides your care, Treasa Hickey (clinic owner) also maintain records about your health and any treatment or care you have received here or previously. These records help provide you with the best possible health care. NBH records are on paper with some information (phone numbers, for example) stored electronically. NBH use a combination of working practices and technology to ensure your information is kept confidential and secure. Records which NBH holds about you may include the following information:

• Details about you, such as your address, contact details, previous medical history and previous investigations
• Any contact with the clinic has had with you, such as appointments, clinic visits, advice given over the phone or email, emergency appointments etc.
• Notes about your and/or your child’s health
• Details about your and/or your child’s treatment and care
• Relevant information from other health care professionals

Information may be used within the clinic for clinical audit purposes to monitor the quality of the services we provide. All of your information is held securely at my home address. Only I, Treasa Hickey have access to encrypted devices and hard copy files where your information is stored.

How do we maintain the confidentiality of your records

NBH is committed to protecting your privacy and will only use information collected lawfully in accordance with:

• General Data Protection Rules 2018

I, Treasa Hickey have a legal obligation to keep information about you confidential. Measures have been put in place to protect the security of your information against accidental loss or disclosure, alteration, unauthorised access, destruction or abuse. Processes have been implemented at NBH to guard against such. In addition, access is limited to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

Who does NBH share your information with?

Information about you is only passed to others, if there is a genuine need for it and you have given your consent. This may be your GP, dentist or other health care professionals, a solicitor or for court proceedings.
NBH will not disclose any information about you to any third party without your written permission or in case of a child’s information the parental consent, unless there are exceptional circumstances (i.e. life or death situations), where the law requires information to be passed on.

Access to your personal information

You have a right under the General Data Protection Rules 2018 to request access to view or obtain copies of what information Natural Back Health holds about you and to have it amended should it be inaccurate. In order to request this you need to do the following:

Your request must be made in writing to the clinic
There is no charge for copies of your file
We are required to respond to you within 30 days
You will need to give us proof of name (Photo ID) so that your identity can be verified

How long we keep your data for

In line with data protection principles,  your data is only kept for as long as needed, which will be at least for the duration of your being a patient with us and NBH is legally required, to keep this data for eight years after your time as a patient has ended. Or in case of children until their 25th birthday. To determine the any appropriate retention period for personal data beyond eight years we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which NBH process your personal data and whether NBH can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.

Once NBH no longer have a lawful use for retaining your information, it will disposed of it in a secure manner that maintains data security.

In some circumstances NBH may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case NBH may use such information without further notice to you.

Right to withdraw consent

Where you have provided consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. There will be no consequences for withdrawing your consent. However, in some cases, NBH may continue to use the data where so permitted by having a legitimate legal reason for doing so. To withdraw consent, contact Treasa Hickey.

Objections/Complaints

Should you have any concerns about how your information is managed at the clinic, please contact the clinic owner in the first instance. If you are still unhappy following a review by Treasa, you can then raise your concern with the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office via their website www.dataprotection.ie

Change of details

It is important that you tell Treasa Hickey if any of your details such as your name or address have changed or if any of your details such as date of birth is incorrect in order for her to correct it.

Notification & Data Controller

If you have any further queries regarding data protection and please see www.dataprotection.ie