In providing your dental care and treatment, we will ask for 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, why we hold it and what we do with it.

About us

We are LHDP Smilecare operating at 15 Chapel Street, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 2BQ.

Kanwar Ratra is responsible for keeping secure the information that we hold about you. Those who have access to your personal information include Kanwar Ratra, Dawn Rogers, Kirsten Grizzell, John Wyatt. Pat Grizzell will also have access to some personal information such as address and D.O.B for administration purposes.

Our data protection officer,Dawn Rogers 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 our data protection officer, Dawn, by email at dawn@lhdpsmilecare.co.uk

Information that we collect

We may collect the following information about you:

• Personal details such as your name, date of birth, national insurance number, NHS number, address,telephone number and email address
• Your referral source if applicable
• 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 teeth, and 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 other health professionals or institutions
  • Details of your own GDP if you are a referral patient
  • Details of the fees we have charged, the amounts you have paid and some payment details

Kanwar Ratra (the practice owner) is responsible for keeping secure the information about you that we hold.

Our data protection officer, Dawn Rogers, ensures that the practice complies with data protection requirements to ensure that we collect, use, store and dispose of your information responsibly.

Those at the practice who have access to your information include dentists and other dental professionals involved with your care and treatment, and the reception staff responsible for the management and administration of the practice.

To provide you with the 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 Denplan (if you are registered within these service providers at the practice) in connection with your dental treatment.

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

If we wish to use your information for dental research or dental education, we will discuss this with you and seek your consent. Depending on the purpose and if possible, we will anonymise your information. If this is not possible we will inform you and discuss your options.

We may use your contact details to inform you of products and services available at our Practice.

Sharing information

Your information is normally used only by those working at the practice but 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
• NHS payment authorities
• The Department for Work and Pensions and its agencies, where you are claiming exemption or remission from NHS charges
• Private dental schemes of which you are a
• Denplan
• Referring dental practitioners

We will only disclose your information on a need-to-know basis and will limit any information that we share to the minimum necessary.

In certain circumstances or if required by law, we may need to disclose your information to a third party not 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/or] 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 daily.

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 the longer.

Access to your information and other rights

You have a right to access the information that we hold about you and to receive a copy. You should submit your request to the practice in writing or by email. We do not usually charge you for copies of your information; if we pass on a charge, we will explain the reasons.