Privacy Policy

Data protection privacy notice for patients

In order to provide your dental care and treatment, we will need to ask for certain personal 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, the reasons why we hold it and an explanation of what we do with it.

About us Bright Smile Studio

operating at 6 Ferry Lane, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8 0BP

Dr. Balika Reddy is responsible for keeping secure the information that we hold about you. Employees at the practice who have access to your information include dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment, as well as the reception staff responsible for the management and administration of the practice.

Dr. Balika Reddy ensures that the practice complies with data protection requirements to ensure that we collect, use, store and dispose of your information responsibly. You can contact Dr. Balika Reddy by email at [email protected] or by phone on 0208 5698533

Information that we hold

We can only keep and use information for specific reasons set out in the law. if we want to keep and use information about your health, we can only do so in particular circumstances. Below, we describe the information we hold and why, and the lawful basis for collecting and using it.

Contact Details

We hold personal information about you including your name, date of birth, national insurance number, NHS number, address, telephone number and email address. This information allows us to fulfil our contract with you to provide appointments. We will also use the information to send you reminders and recall appointments as we have a legitimate interest to ensure your continuing care and to make you aware of our services.

Dental Records

We hold information about your dental and general health, including

Clinical records made by dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and
treatment
X-rays, clinical photographs, digital scans of your mouth and teething study models
Medical and dental histories
Treatment plans and consent
Notes of conversations with you about your care
Dates of your appointments
Details of any complaints you have made and how these complaints were dealt with
Correspondence with you and other health professional or institutions

We collect and use this information to allow us to fulfil our contract with you to discuss your treatment options and provide dental care that meets your needs. We also use this information for the legitimate interest of ensuring the quality of the treatment we provide.

Financial Information

We hold information about the fee’s we have charged, the amounts you have paid and some payment details. This information forms part of our contractual obligation to you to provide dental care and allows us to meet legal financial requirements.

Where your dental care is provided under the terms of the NHS, we are required to complete statutory forms to allow payments to be processed. This is an NHS requirement.

How we use your Information

To provide you with 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/or name of private dental plan provider in connection with your dental treatment.

We may contact you with conduct patient surveys, or to find out if you are happy with the treatment you received for quality control purposes.

We will seek your preference for how we contact you about your dental care. Our usual methods are telephone, email or letter.

We have CCTV at the practice for the purposes of patient and staff safety. Please see our policy for CCTV for further details.

Sharing Information

Your information is normally used only by those working at the practice, 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
Specialist dental or medical services to which we may refer you
NHS payment authorities
The Department for Work and Pensions and its agencies, where you are claiming exemption or
remission from NHS charges
Dental laboratories
Debt collection agencies
Private dental schemes of which you are a member

We will only discuss your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary. We will let you know in advance if we send your medical information to another medical provider and we will give you the details of that provider at that time.

In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information to third party nor 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.

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 longer. At your request, we will delete non-essential information (for example some contact details) before the end of this period.

Access to your information and other rights

You have the right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy. We do not usually charge you for copies of your information; if we do pass on a charge we will explain the reasons.

You can 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 some of the information we hold. For legal reasons, we may be unable to erase certain information (for example, information about your dental treatment). We can however, if you ask us to, delete some contact details and other non-clinical information.
Stop using your information-for example, sending you reminders for appointments or information about our services. Even if you have given us consent to send you marketing information, you may withdraw that consent at anytime.
Stop using information, if you believe the information is inaccurate or you believe we are using your information illegally.
Supply you information electronically to another dentist

If we are relying on your consent to use your personal information for a particular purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time and we will stop using your information for that purpose.

All requests should be made by email to Dr. Balika Reddy at [email protected] or by phone on 0208 5698533

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 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 1231113 or 01625 545745)

What Cookies Do We Use and What For?

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. This sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your computer. These are called ‘cookies’.  These cookies cannot be used to identify you personally and are used to improve services for you, for example:

Letting you navigate between pages efficiently
Enabling a service to recognise your computer, so you don’t have to give the same information during one task
Measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and that there is enough capacity to ensure they are fast.

To learn more about cookies, see: - www.allaboutcookies.org - www.youronlinechoices.eu  – www.google.com/policies/technologies/cookies/

Users typically have the opportunity to set their browser to accept all or some cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these options, of course, means that personalised services cannot be provided and the user may not be able to take full advantage of all of a website’s features.

You can choose to enable or disable cookies in your internet browser. Most internet browsers also enable you to choose whether you wish to disable all cookies or only third-party cookies. By default, most internet browsers accept cookies but this can be changed. For further details, please consult the help menu in your internet browser or the documentation that came with your device.

You can choose to delete cookies at any time however you may lose any information that enables you to access our website more quickly and efficiently including, but not limited to, login and personalisation settings.

It is recommended that you keep your internet browser and operating system up-to-date and that you consult the help and guidance provided by the developer of your internet browser and manufacturer of your computer or device if you are unsure about adjusting your privacy settings.