Privacy Policy
Harley Street Hearing Group Privacy Policy
Information Management, Record Keeping & Patient Privacy
1.Patient Confidentiality:
Aim:
To provide and maintain an environment where all information and disclosures regarding patients and patient care is kept confidential and within legal parameters at all times. Those procedures will comply with The Data Protection Act 1998, Access to Medical Records Act 1990 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (effective from 25/05/2018).
Policy:
It is the policy of Harley Street Hearing that no information will be discussed outside of Harley Street Hearing’s employment unless consent is given.
On commencement of employment at Harley Street Hearing all staff within the group sign a confidentiality agreement to ensure that no information provided at shall be discussed with any person outside of Harley Street Hearing unless consent has been given.
Any records required to be kept under current legislation are retained for the relevant periods prescribed in the legislation.
Where data is to be destroyed, paper records are shredded and disposed of appropriately. Electronic records are deleted or archived, which restricts all access.
2. Records Management:
The Registered Manager ensures that there is a records policy for the creation, management, handling, storage and destruction of all records that ensures that records are managed and stored securely in accordance with GDPR.
Any records required to be kept under current legislation are retained for the relevant periods as prescribed by GDPR.
All records are stored electronically on a patient management system. Any hard copies are destroyed immediately after the relevant information has been transferred to the electronic database.
Harley Street Hearing is responsible for your records when receiving audiological consultation, examination, irrigation, fitting of hearing instruments and diagnostic procedures.
Use of Information:
In addition to retaining records to meet and maintain your audiological needs, other purposes for the retention of data could include the following:
Information to assist in treatment received from 3rd parties such as medical consultants and doctors.
Information received from relatives or friends with prior approval.
Information about changes or improvements to our services which will help us consider and assess your audiological needs.
Information to assist Harley Street Hearing to assess your audiological needs from an appropriate and legitimate 3rd This could involve contact with an insurance company to seek information on your behalf.
We may also use your personal information to provide you with information, about products or services which are relevant to you, where you have provided consent for us to do so.
Financial information such as credit cards, bank accounts, and insurance policy details relevant to provision of audiological services.
3. Individual Rights for Patients:
When seeking and agreeing to treatment at Harley Street Hearing, we will advise you of your individual rights.
Individual rights include providing you with complete confidentiality with regard to your data. We will also provide access to information when requested, transfer information to another source, or delete all records upon request.
We are also committed to providing our reasons for collecting personal information to meet and maintain your audiological needs, subject to continued agreement.
4. Appointment of Data Protection Officer:
Nicci Aylott is appointed as a Data Protection Officer for the Harley Street Hearing group.
Enquiries and Complaints:
The Data Protection Officer is the first point of contact regarding any enquiries arising from this privacy notice. Where possible all enquiries should be raised in writing.
If you have a complaint about how your data has been processed please contact here. Harley Street Hearing will acknowledge receipt of all complaints and endeavour to investigate the complaint within twenty working days.
Complaints by post should be directed to:
Nicci Aylott
Harley Street Hearing
2 Harley Street
London
W1G 9PA
You may also complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are concerned with how Harley Street Hearing is processing information see here
5. Report of any Breach:
Harley Street Hearing recognise that a personal data breach is any breach of security leading to the destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to personal data.
We are committed to report any data breach where it is likely to result in a risk to your rights or freedoms which, if not addressed, could cause a ‘significant detrimental effect’.
Harley Street Hearing will, after assessing the facts of any alleged breach, report the nature of the breach to the Information Commissioners Office, within 72 hours.
You will be informed when any breach is reported.
6. Consultants:
Medical consultants who see you at 2 Harley Street, 127 Harley Street, North London Hearing or any of our clinics at 9 Harley Street, North West Hearing and HCA Healthcare – The Shard, Wellington Hospital, and Prime Health Partners are responsible for their own information management, record keeping and patient privacy.
7. Data collected from any Harley Street Hearing websites:
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have in place appropriate physical, and electronic procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web-page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to user’s needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and the data is then removed from the system.
Overall, cookies helps us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
Analytics
On our websites we use Google Analytics to track user behaviour. This information is collected anonymously. This service tracks how users find this website, information about the device used to visit our site and information about what pages are viewed and for how long. Additionally specific user behaviour on the site, such as links being clicked or images being viewed, can also be tracked. This information is used to help optimise our websites and improve the user experience.
To opt-out of Google Analytics, both on our sites and others, you may install the google analytics opt-out browser add-on click here
More information about google analytics can be found here
Links to other websites
Our websites may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over those other websites. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites, and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.