Patients have a right to a confidential dental service. In the process of accessing and receiving dental care, patients provide a lot of personal information. This includes their name, address, date of birth, contact details and appointment history and also sensitive personal information relating to their medical or dental health. All personal information you hold about your patients including the fact that they are a patient at your practice is confidential. However, confidentiality is not absolute and from time to time you will be asked to provide disclosure. In doing so, you must ensure compliance with your legal and professional obligations to protect and maintain patient confidential information.
Under the GDPR, your patients have a right to access their own personal information held by your dental practice. They also have a right to be informed. This means you must provide a privacy notice at the point their personal information is collected informing them about your lawful basis for processing their personal information. You must only process your patient data for the reason you have set out in your privacy notice and not for any other purpose. The BDA has produced template privacy notices which are available on our website for Expert members.
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