What is a Privacy Notice?
Harlow Chiropractic Clinic respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.
Under UK data protection law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have certain rights regarding the personal information we collect and use about you.
This Privacy Notice explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and protect it, how long we keep it, who we may share it with, and the rights you have in relation to your information.
Who We Are
Harlow Chiropractic Clinic
19B The Latton Bush Centre
Southern Way
Harlow, Essex
CM18 7BL
Telephone: 07709 450 672
Email: harlowchiropracticclinic@gmail.com
Website: harlowchiropracticclinic.com
For the purposes of UK data protection law, Harlow Chiropractic Clinic is the Data Controller responsible for the personal information we hold about you.
The Personal Information We Collect
In order to provide chiropractic assessment, treatment and related healthcare services, we may collect and process information including:
- Your name, address and contact details;
- Telephone number and email address;
- Date of birth;
- Emergency contact information;
- Information contained in your new-patient registration and medical-history forms;
- Details about your health, symptoms, medical history, previous treatment and current medication;
- Clinical examination findings, diagnoses or clinical impressions;
- Treatment plans and records of treatment provided;
- Relevant correspondence with you or other healthcare professionals;
- X-rays, scans, clinical images and investigation results where applicable;
- Appointment and payment information; and
- Any other information reasonably required to provide you with appropriate chiropractic care.
Information concerning your physical or mental health is treated as special category personal data and receives additional protection under data protection law.
Why We Use Your Personal Information
We use your personal information for purposes including:
- Registering you as a patient;
- Assessing your health and suitability for chiropractic care;
- Providing, reviewing and managing your treatment;
- Maintaining accurate clinical records;
- Communicating with you about appointments and your care;
- Referring you to, or communicating with, another healthcare professional where appropriate;
- Obtaining or reviewing relevant investigations, including X-rays where required;
- Processing payments and maintaining appropriate financial records;
- Complying with our professional, regulatory, legal and insurance obligations; and
- Responding to complaints, legal claims or regulatory enquiries where necessary.
Our Lawful Basis for Processing Your Information
We only process your personal information where we have a lawful reason to do so.
Depending on the purpose, our lawful bases may include:
Contract – where processing is necessary in order to provide the chiropractic services you have requested.
Legal obligation – where we are required to process or retain information to comply with applicable legal or regulatory duties.
Legitimate interests – where processing is reasonably necessary for the operation and protection of the clinic and does not override your rights and interests.
Where we process information about your health, we must also satisfy an additional condition under UK data protection law because health information is classified as special category data.
We generally process health information because it is necessary for the provision and management of healthcare by, or under the responsibility of, a healthcare professional who is subject to an obligation of professional confidentiality.
Where appropriate, we may also rely upon your explicit consent for a specific use of your information.
Sharing Your Personal Information
We treat your information as confidential and will not normally disclose your clinical information to another person or organisation without an appropriate lawful basis.
Where appropriate, and subject to confidentiality and data protection requirements, information may be shared with:
- Your GP, consultant or another healthcare professional involved in your care;
- Radiologists or other healthcare professionals who assess X-rays, scans or other investigations;
- Healthcare providers to whom you have asked us to refer you;
- Professional advisers, insurers or legal representatives where necessary;
- Regulators or public authorities where disclosure is required by law; and
- Organisations that provide services to the clinic, such as secure clinical-record, IT, appointment, accounting or payment-service providers, where they are processing information on our behalf and appropriate data-protection arrangements are in place.
Where your consent is the appropriate basis for sharing information, we will obtain that consent before disclosure.
There may be exceptional circumstances in which information can or must be disclosed without your consent, for example where disclosure is required by law or is necessary to protect someone from serious harm.
How We Protect Your Information
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against accidental or unlawful loss, alteration, disclosure, access or destruction.
Patient information is stored securely, whether held electronically or in paper form, and access is limited to people who have an appropriate reason to access it.
How Long We Keep Your Information
Patient records are retained in accordance with professional and regulatory requirements applicable to chiropractors.
For adult patients, chiropractic records are normally retained for at least eight years following the patient’s last treatment.
For patients who were children when treated, records may need to be retained for longer. Current General Chiropractic Council guidance provides for retention for 11 years following the last treatment or until the patient’s 25th birthday, whichever is longer.
Once information is no longer required and the relevant retention period has expired, it will be securely destroyed or deleted unless there is a lawful reason to retain it for longer.
Your Data Protection Rights
Depending on the circumstances, you have a number of rights concerning your personal information.
Right of Access
You have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you. This is known as a Subject Access Request.
You are not normally required to give a reason for requesting your information, and in most circumstances no fee is charged.
To make a request, please contact us using the details shown above. We may need to ask you for appropriate information to confirm your identity before releasing personal information.
Right to Rectification
If you believe that personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you may ask us to correct it.
Clinical records must remain an accurate record of the care provided, so amendments to clinical records may need to be made by way of a clearly identified correction or additional entry rather than deleting the original clinical record.
Right to Erasure
In certain circumstances, you may ask us to erase your personal information.
This right is not absolute. We may be required to retain your clinical records for a specified period because of professional, regulatory, legal or other legitimate requirements.
Right to Restrict Processing
In certain circumstances, you may ask us to restrict the way we use your personal information.
Right to Object
In certain circumstances, you may have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests.
Right to Data Portability
Where the legal requirements are met, you may have the right to receive personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or to ask us to transfer it to another organisation.
Right to Withdraw Consent
Where we rely upon your consent to process your personal information, you may withdraw that consent at any time.
Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact:
Harlow Chiropractic Clinic
19B The Latton Bush Centre
Southern Way
Harlow, Essex
CM18 7BL
Telephone: 07709 450 672
Email: harlowchiropracticclinic@gmail.com
Personal Data Breaches
We have procedures in place to identify and manage personal-data breaches.
Where a breach is likely to result in a high risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you without undue delay where required by law. We will explain the nature of the breach, its likely consequences where known, and the measures being taken to address it.
Where legally required, we will also report relevant personal-data breaches to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Complaints
If you have any questions or concerns about the way we collect or use your personal information, we encourage you to contact us first so that we can try to resolve the matter.
You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent regulator for data protection.
Information about making a complaint is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Concerns about the professional conduct of a chiropractor may also fall within the remit of the General Chiropractic Council (GCC).
Automated Decision-Making and Profiling
We do not use your personal information to make decisions about you solely by automated means, and we do not carry out automated profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects concerning you.
How We Obtain Your Information
Most of the personal information we hold about you is obtained directly from you, including information:
- Provided on your new-patient registration or medical-history forms;
- Given during consultations, assessments and treatment;
- Supplied when booking or communicating with the clinic; and
- Provided through correspondence with us.
We may also receive relevant information from another healthcare professional, diagnostic provider or other third party where you have authorised this or where another lawful basis permits the disclosure.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our services, professional requirements or data protection law.
The most recent version will be made available through Harlow Chiropractic Clinic.
