This document gives you information on how we collect, process and protect your personal data through the use of the website www.thebronteclinic.com, Dr Fiona McCarthy is responsible for your personal data. Please let us know if any of your contact details change.

If you are not happy with any aspect of how we use and collect your data,  please do contact the clinic via [email protected].

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk.

Data that may be collected about you:

• address, email and telephone numbers.
• full past and current names, username, title, gender, date of birth and marital status.
• bank account and payment card details as well as details of payments.
• technical data about the devices you use to access the site.

We require this information to understand your needs and provide a suitable service to you and will only use your personal data when legally permitted.

Common uses are

• for internal record keeping
• to improve our services
• where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation

Security

We are committed to ensuring your information is secure with procedures to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure.

Data protection and confidentiality policy

The clinic needs to hold certain types of information about the people it deals with to fulfil its purpose and meet legal obligations. This includes both patients and suppliers. This information must be collected, stored and used properly.

The clinic complies with the Data Protection Act of 1998 and the GMC guidelines to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information.

Any person identifiable information is held, obtained, received, used, disclosed, shared, destroyed or transmitted in a secure environment.

The clinic keeps records regarding health and any treatment provided. These records are encrypted and stored remotely in the cloud by Heydoc, a specialist patient management system.

We will ask for your consent before sharing any of your medical information with your GP. If you wish to view your medical record kept at the clinic, please contact Dr Fiona McCarthy.

Information that may be included in your clinic records:

• personal details such as full name, address, next of kin
• details of previous clinic visits
• notes of your past medical history, current health, examination findings and medication prescribed, including the information from your patient questionnaire
• results of investigations
• allergies
• relevant information from and to other health care professionals

This information may be used to

• review the care provided
• investigate adverse incidents and complaints
• to analyse the clinic’s performance and improve services as needed

Situations where information may need to be passed on to others include:

• when others involved in the patient care have a genuine need for the information
• in exceptional circumstances when the health and safety of others is at risk or where the law requires information to be passed on
• where information is required for national registries
• when required by law to report certain information to the appropriate authorities

Disclaimer

All of the content contained on this site is checked for accuracy, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy or the safety of any external links it might contain. The contents of this website are subject to change without notice. The contents are not a substitute for professional and individualised medical advice.

Relevant legislation

Along with our business and internal computer systems, this website is designed to comply with the following national and international legislation with regards to data protection and user privacy:

• UK Data Protection Act 1988 (DPA)
• EU Data Protection Directive 1995 (DPD)
• EU General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR)

This site’s compliance with the above legislation, all of which are stringent in nature, means that this site is likely compliant with the data protection and user privacy legislation set out by many other countries and territories as well. If you are unsure about whether this site is compliant with your own country of residences’ specific data protection and user privacy legislation you should contact our data protection officer (details of whom can be found in section 9.0) for clarification.

Personal information that this website collects and why we collect it

This website collects and uses personal information for the following reasons:

Site visitation tracking

Like most websites, this site uses Google Analytics (GA) to track user interaction. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site, to better understand how they find and use our web pages and to see their journey through the website.

Although GA records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system, none of this information personally identifies you to us. GA also records your computer’s IP address which could be used to personally identify you but Google do not grant us access to this. We consider Google to be a third party data processor (see section 6.0 below).

GA makes use of cookies, details of which can be found on Google’s developer guides. FYI our website uses the analytics.js implementation of GA.
Disabling cookies on your internet browser will stop GA from tracking any part of your visit to pages within this website.

Comments & feedback

If you send feedback relating to any services, they may be displayed on the website. If you would like feedback to be kept private or if you would like to remove any feedback, please let us know on [email protected].

We are always keen to receive feedback from patients.

Contact forms and email links

Should you choose to contact us using the contact form on our Contact us page, a booking form or an email link, none of the data that you supply will be stored by this website or passed to / be processed by any of the third party data processors defined in section 6.0. Instead the data will be collated into an email and sent to us over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Our SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted using SHA-2, 256-bit cryptography before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by our local computers and devices.

Email newsletter

We do not currently store any customer information on this website.

Member/ customer information

We do not currently store any customer information on this website.

Cookie Policy

About cookies

Please note that this website uses cookies. By using this website, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookies are information packets sent by web servers to web browsers, and stored by the web browsers. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables a web server to identify and track web browsers.

There are two main kinds of cookies: session cookies and persistent cookies. Session cookies are deleted from your computer when you close your browser, whereas persistent cookies remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach their expiry date.

Cookies on our website

Currently this website only uses ‘session cookies’, whereby no information is retained. These cookies function purely to improve your experience using the website.

Google cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store and use this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.

When you use this website, you may also be sent the following third party cookies, which may be used for the following purposes:

Refusing cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. In Internet Explorer, you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools > Internet Options > Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector.

In Firefox, you can adjust your cookies settings by clicking “Tools > Options” and “Privacy”.

Blocking cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of this website.

Decency Policy

THE BRONTE CLINIC LTD  regards privacy and decency as a key aspect of its service delivery process, and will seek to uphold the highest requirements at all times. Our clinic prides itself on the high priority being given to ensuring that our patients/service users are always treated with dignity and respect.  We regard this as essential if they are to feel that they are being treated as individuals, and also give us the trust that is necessary in providing quality services.

Our policy is that the following actions will be taken in order to promote the privacy and dignity of our patients/service users:

• Making available a chaperone whenever necessary and desirable.
• Offering a choice of therapist whenever possible, in particular a choice between a female and a male doctor when this is required for reasons of cultural sensitivity.
• Recognising the need for privacy when conducting any intimate, intrusive or complex therapeutic interventions.
• Making sure that consent to treatment is always obtained in advance when this is necessary and desirable.
• Avoiding the excessive use of clinical jargon which may not be fully understood by the patient/service user.
• Avoiding the use of abbreviations that might be confusing for patients/service users and their carers.
• Offering a choice of options when referring patients/service users so that informed choice can be made.
• Ensuring that any language difficulties are identified and appropriate interpreting and/or translating services made available as necessary.
• Making sure that forms, posters, signs, etc are in easy-to-understand format so that patients/service users are not embarrassed by having to ask.
• Acknowledging the right of patients/service users to refuse treatment and therapies.
• Always involving patients/service users and their carers closely in decisions about their individual care.
• Ensuring that confidentiality is maintained, including consulting in private to ensure confidential information is not overheard.
• Ensuring that all staff behave professionally and with discretion towards all patients/service users and their visitors at all times
• Not stereotyping patients/service users based on perceived characteristics
• Patients/service users will be addressed by their preferred method and title. Mr, Mrs etc will be the usual form of address by staff.