Privacy Statement

This Practice wants to ensure the highest standard of medical care for our patients. We understand that a General Practice is a trusted community governed by an ethic of privacy and confidentiality. Our approach is consistent with the Medical Council guidelines and the privacy principles of the Data Protection Regulations. It is not possible to undertake medical care without collecting and processing personal data and data concerning health. In fact, to do so would be in breach of the Medical Council’s Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Doctors’. This leaflet is about advising you of our policies and practices on dealing with your medical information.

Legal Basis for Processing your Data

This practice has voluntarily signed up for the ICGP Data Protection Guideline for GPs. The processing of personal data in general practice is necessary to protect the vital interest of the patient and for the provision of healthcare and public health. You can access the Guideline at https://www.icgp.ie/data.

In most circumstances we hold your data until 8 years after your death or 8 years since your last contact with the practice. There are exceptions to this rule, and these are described in the Guideline referenced above.

Managing your information

To provide for your care here we need to collect and keep information about you and your health on our records We will only ask for and keep information that is necessary. We will attempt to keep it as accurate and up to date as possible. We will explain the need for any information we ask for if you are not sure why it is needed. We ask you to inform us about any relevant changes that we should know about. This would include such things as any new treatments or investigations being carried out that we are not aware of. Please also inform us of change of address and phone number. All persons in the practice (not already covered by a professional confidentiality code) sign a confidentiality agreement that explicitly makes clear their duties in relation to personal health information and the consequences of breaching that duty.

Access to patient records is regulated to ensure that they are used only to the extent necessary to enable the secretary or manager to perform their tasks for the proper functioning of the practice. In this regard patients should understand that practice staff may have access to their records for:

• Identifying and printing repeat prescriptions for patients. These are then reviewed and signed by the GP.
• Generating a sickness certificate for the patient. This is then checked and signed by the GP.
• Typing referral letters to hospital consultants or allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, and dietiticians.
• Opening letters from hospitals and consultants. The letters could be appended to a patient’s paper file or scanned into their electronic patient record.
• Scanning clinical letters, radiology reports and any other documents not available in electronic format.
• Downloading laboratory results and Out of Hours Coop reports and performing integration of these results into the electronic patient record.
• Photocopying or printing documents for referral to consultant, attendance at an antenatal clinic or when a patient is changing GP.
• Checking for a patient if a hospital or consultant letter is back or if a laboratory or radiology result is back, to schedule a conversation with the GP.
• When a patient contacts a practice, checking if they are due for any preventative services, such as vaccination, ante natal visit, contraceptive pill check, cervical smear test etc.
• Handling, printing, photocopying and postage of medico legal and life assurance reports, and of associated documents.
• Sending and receiving information via Health mail, secure clinical email.
• And other activities related to the support of medical care appropriate for practice support staff.

Disclosure of Information to Other Health and Social Care Professionals

We may need to pass some of this information to other health and social care professionals to provide you with the treatment and services you need. Only the relevant part of your record will be released. These other professionals are also legally bound to treat your information with the same duty of care and confidentiality that we do.

Disclosures Required or Permitted Under Law

The law provides that in certain instances personal information (including health information) can be disclosed, for example, in the case of infectious disease.

In general, work related Medical Certificates from your GP will only provide a confirmation that you are unfit for work with an indication of when you will be fit to resume work. Where it is considered necessary to provide additional information, we will discuss this with you. However, the Department of Social Protection sickness certs for work must include the medical reason you are unfit for work.

In the case of disclosure to insurance companies or requests made by solicitors for your records we will only release the information with your signed consent.

Use of Information for Training, Teaching and Quality Assurance

It is usual for GPs to discuss patient case histories as part of their continuing medical education or the purpose of training GPs and /or medical students. In these situations, the identity of the patient concerned will not be revealed.

In other situations, however, it may be beneficial for other doctors within the practice to be aware of patients with particular conditions and in such cases this practice would only communicate the information necessary to provide the highest level of care to the patient.

Use of Information for Research and Audit

It is usual for patient information to be used for research and audit to improve services and standards of practice. GPs on the specialist register of the Medical Council are required to perform yearly clinical audits. Information used for such purposes is done in an anonymised or pseudonymised manner with all personal identifying information removed.

If it were proposed to use your information in a way where it would not be anonymous, or the Practice was involved in external research we would discuss this further with you before we proceeded and seek your written information consent. Please remember that the quality of the patient service provided can only be maintained and improved by training, teaching, audit and research.

Your Right of Access to your Health Information

You have the right to access all personal information held about you in this practice. If you wish to see your records, in most cases the quickest way is to discuss this with your doctor who will review the information in the record with you.

As a private patient you can make a formal written access request to the practice and receive a copy of your medical records. These will be provided to you within thirty days without cost. As a General Medical Services patient, you must apply to the HSE directly under the Freedom of Information Act as the HSE are the guardians of your notes. They in due course will provide you with your notes on receipt from the practice.

Transferring to Another Practice

If you decide at any time and for whatever reason to transfer to another practice, we will facilitate that decision by making available to your new doctor a copy of your records on receipt of your signed consent from your new doctor. For medico-legal reasons we will also retain a copy of your records in this practice for an appropriate period which may exceed eight years.

Other Rights

You have other rights under data protection regulations in relation to transfer of data to a third country, the right to rectification or erasure, restriction of processing, objection to procession and data portability. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commissioner.

Questions

If you have any questions, please speak with the Practice Manager or your Doctor. You can additionally contact us at info@elmsurgery.ie.

Thank you for taking the time to read our privacy policy.

Contacting us through our website

We have provided the ability to contact us via web form at elmsurgery.ie.

Please review these Terms and Conditions carefully. By accessing and using our site, you confirm that you have read, understand and accept the Terms and Conditions and that you agree to follow the terms each time you access and use our site. If you do not agree with any of the Terms and Conditions, you may not use our site.

We reserve the right to change and update the Terms and Conditions at any time and suggest you review these Terms and Conditions regularly. Any changes will take effect immediately when posted on our site.

You accept that:

• The data entered is correct and of lawful nature.
• The data entered is representitive of you as the communication party and not a third-party.
• You will not enter any data that contains any profanity, is vulgar or offensive to any degree.
• The details you enter may be used for further communication related to your topic of inquiry and/or follow-up correspondence from Elm Surgery.
• The details you provide will reside on our email server for reference to communications with Elm Surgery indefinitely, unless otherwise requested to be removed.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at info@elmsurgery.ie.

Thank you for taking the time to read our terms and conditions.

Elm surgery has its own comprehensive Complaints Policy

Should you be dissatisfied with the care we offer our patients, please contact reception and request a complaints form that should be fully completed to allow for a thorough investigation to take place.

We aim to respond to your complaint within 14 days.

If we have met your expectation when visiting Elm Surgery – we would be delighted to hear from you.

Tell us about your experience and we will share this information with Dr Ese Nzewi, Principle of the surgery and all the staff.

Our aim at Elm surgery to offer the highest standard of care to our patients.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at info@elmsurgery.ie.

What is a cookie policy?

This is a declaration to users on what cookies are active on a website that you visit and what data is tracked.

Cookies at Elm Surgery

At Elm Surgery we do not set any cookies ourselves for marketing purposes, data tracking etc. At present, we do not currently advertise on our site but this may change in the future. This is why it is important to keep up to date with our policy during your visits with us. Do not worry though, we will keep you informed with updates to our policy and if we start using cookies then you will be notified and provided the option to OPT-IN or OUT.

However we do want to keep you informed about some of technologies that are used on this site which may create cookies when you visit. These are functional cookies and are needed for our site design and to work properly.

For some of the design of this site, we have implemented some libraries which gives us access to some features to use. For example a very common library used in the world of web development is called Bootstrap. This is a library which allows us to combine our design techniques with some of their styling properties to create some amazing looking profiles.

We also utilize a library called JQuery. This is a scripting library which we can combine our knowledge in Javascript to make some really cool effects. Finally we also utilize a library called FontAwesome - it really is! This is a library which allows us to use some great looking icons in our developments. These libaries are not hosted by us and may create a cookie for you. We do not have control over this. We would invite you to check out these artifacts for more information and privacy details. When something is 'Hosted' this means that this is not stored on our website. We request this data each time a page is loaded (depending on caching).

Let us just recap on a few key words that you just read. A 'Library' is a collection of precompiled/created routines that can be stored locally or remotely accessed. A 'script' is a piece of code that can be found in a library, or directly on a website.

By using our site you are consenting to the necessary cookies from the above mentioned libraries.

Questions

If you have any questions, please reach out to us at info@elmsurgery.ie.

Thank you for taking the time to read our cookie policy.