As custodian of personal information relating to your medical treatment, we must treat that information in accordance with all applicable law and guidance. This Privacy Notice provides you with an overview of how we will manage your data, from the point at which it is gathered via this website. We will use that information for a variety of purposes including, but not limited to, providing you with care and treatment, sharing it with other medical professionals and research/clinic audit programmes, and seeking feedback on your patient experience. We may also, with your specific agreement, contact you with materials relevant to your care with us. This Privacy Notice will give you all the details you need on how we use your information, and how we will comply with the law in doing so.
About us
In this Privacy Notice we use “we” or “us” or “our” or “AccuVision” to refer to the company who is using your personal information, and the clinicians and employees who provide and assist in your enquiry or treatment.
What personal information do we collect and use from patients via this website?
The personal information that we collect will depend on your relationship with us. We will collect different information depending on whether or not you are already a patient of AccuVision.
We may use “special categories of personal information” (otherwise known as “special categories of data”) about you, such as information relating to your physical and mental health. For example, if you are a patient we will need to use information about your health in order to treat you.
If you provide personal information to us about other individuals (including medical or financial information) you should inform the individual about the contents of this Privacy Notice. We will process such information in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
In addition, you should note that in the event you amend data which we already hold about you (for instance by amending a pre-populated form) then we will update our systems to reflect the amendments. Our systems will continue to store historical data.
Personal information
When you enquire via our website, the personal information we hold about you may include the following:
- Contact details, such as postal address, email address and telephone number (including mobile number)
- Background referral details or information on your vision and health
- Financial information, such as credit card details used to pay us
Special Categories Personal Information
As a patient of AccuVision, we will hold information relating to your medical treatment which is known as a special category of personal data under the law, meaning that it must be handled even more sensitively. The special categories of personal information we hold about you may include the
following:
- Details of your current or former physical or mental health. This may include information about any healthcare you have received (both from AccuVision directly and other healthcare providers such as GPs, optometrists or hospitals (private and/or NHS)) or need, including about clinic and hospital visits and medicines administered. We provide further details below on the manner in which we handle such information.
- Details of services you have received from us
The confidentiality of your medical information is important to AccuVision. We make every effort to prevent unauthorised access to and use of information relating to your current or former physical and mental health. In doing so, AccuVision complies with UK data protection law, including the Data
Protection Act 2018, and all applicable medical confidentiality guidelines issued by professional bodies including, but not limited to, the General Medical Council and the General Optical Council.
From 25 May 2018, the current Data Protection Act will be replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and a new Data Protection Act. All uses of AccuVision information will comply with the GDPR and the new Data Protection Act from that date onwards
How do we collect your information on the website?
We may collect personal information from a number of different sources including, but not limited to:
Directly from you
Information may be collected directly from you when:
- You enter into a discussion or information request with AccuVision for the provision of healthcare services
- You use those services
- You complete enquiry forms on the AccuVision website
- You submit a query to us including through our website, by email or by social media
- you correspond with us by letter, email, telephone or social media, including where you reference AccuVision in a public social media post
- You take part in our marketing activities
When you register as a patient with AccuVision, we may collect further information from you, but also from other sources such as:
From other healthcare organisations
Our patients will usually receive healthcare from other organisations in addition to AccuVision, and so in order to provide you with the best treatment possible we may have to collect personal information about you from other organisations. These may include:
- Medical records from your GP
- Medical records from your clinician (including their medical secretaries)
- Optical records from your optometrist
- Medical records from the NHS or any private healthcare organisation
- Medical records include information about your diagnosis, clinic and hospital visits and medicines
- administered
How will we communicate with you?
In order to communicate with you, we are likely to do this by telephone, SMS, email, and / or post.
If we contact you using the telephone number(s) which you have provided (landline and/or mobile), and you are not available which results in the call being directed to a voicemail and/or answering service, we may leave a voice message on your voicemail and/or answering service as appropriate.
Please note providing your mobile number and email address and stating a preference to be communicated by a particular method will be taken as an affirmative confirmation that you are happy for us to contact you in that manner.
What are the purposes for which your information is used?
We may ‘process’ your information for a number of different purposes, which is essentially the language used by the law to mean using your data. Each time we use your data we must have a legal justification to do so. The particular justification will depend on the purpose of the proposed use of your data. When the information that we process is classed as “special category of
personal information”, we must have a specific additional legal justification in order to use it as proposed.
Generally we will rely on the following legal justifications, or ‘grounds’: