Privacy Policy | My Site 1

Sophie Sidney, Speech and Language Therapist

This independent speech and language therapy practice is committed to protecting the privacy of information provided by clients.

Collection of Personal Information

Information about your child may be collected via spoken or written information from parents/carers. With parental consent, information may be requested from other professionals working with your child (such as teachers, nursery staff, childminders, NHS speech and language therapist). I may also collect information about family members where this relates to your child e.g. contact details for parents and relevant medical or developmental history.

You may use my website without providing any personal information. The website contains links to other internet sites which are outside my control and are not covered.

My Use of Personal Information

Personal information collected by me via email, telephone or face-to-face, is stored and used by me for the purpose of delivering your child’s speech and language therapy.

Any sensitive personal details are stored in a secure and confidential system and processed in confidence by myself and shall only be used for the purposes of delivering appropriate speech and language therapy services to your child.

With your consent, information about your child’s speech and language needs will be shared with other professionals involved in your child’s care, when it is in your child’s best interests. A record of your consent is kept within your child’s case notes.

Unless I am required to do so by law (e.g. in the event of a safeguarding concern), I will not disclose any personal information collected to any person other than as set out above.

I do not employ agents to process personal data – for example, specialist mailing companies to send out communications. I do not give or sell client details to any third parties.

How I use personal information

I use this information:

To prepare, plan and provide speech and language therapy services appropriate for your child’s needs
To collect case history information (e.g. name, date of birth, names of parents/carers, address, email address, telephone numbers, school name and contact details), session notes, email communications, medical and developmental history, assessment data and reports generated by others shared via yourself.
To communicate with you via post, email, telephone, mobile messages and sms in relation to:
Confirming and preparing for appointments
General communication in-between appointments
Sending you reports and programmes for your child
Copying you in communications with other professionals involved with your child
Sending you resources
Sending you invoices
For clinical audit to assess and improve my service. Results of audits are always presented with all client identities removed.

Whenever personal identifiers are not needed for these tasks, if possible, I remove them from the information I use.

How I store personal information

All information about you, your child and their speech and language therapy is stored securely in my systems to ensure that I have a complete record of my service to them. Documents which contain confidential information such as reports and programmes are individually password protected. Any paper-based confidential information such as assessments are stored securely in accordance with Data Protection Regulations.

Videos may be taken of clients with parental consent. These are temporarily stored on an encrypted and password protected tablet. These may then be viewed by myself in order to make notes in a client record within 24 hours of the child’s appointment. The video is then deleted.

The minimum amount of confidential information will be taken out of my office base. When your child’s information is taken out of the office base it will be kept with me (for example, at the child’s school).

In accordance with law, all records will be kept securely until your child is 25 years old. After this time all records relating to your child will be destroyed.

Meeting our professional obligations

It is a legal requirement for all speech and language therapists to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). The HCPC has clear standards of conduct, performance and ethics that all registrants must adhere to.

These standards affect the way in which we process and share information. Specifically:

Standard 2: Communicate appropriately and effectively

“You must share relevant information, where appropriate, with colleagues involved in the care, treatment or other services provided to a service user.”

Standard 10: Keep records of your work

“You must keep full, clear, and accurate records for everyone you care for, treat, or provide other services to. You must complete all records promptly an as soon as possible after providing care, treatment or other services. You must keep records secure by protecting them from loss, damage or inappropriate access.”

For further information please see: www.hcpc-uk.org

UK Data Protection Law and EU General Data Protection Regulations

Data Protection Law lays down wide-ranging rules, backed up by criminal sanctions, for the processing of information about identifiable, living individuals. It also gives individuals certain rights in relation to personal data held about them by others.

I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a Data Controller. You can view my ICO registration by visiting: www.ico.org.uk

The lawful basis for processing personal information

My lawful basis for processing and storing personal information is one of ‘legitimate interest’ (under Article 6 of GDPR). I cannot adequately deliver a service to your child without processing their personal information. As it is both a necessity for my service delivery and of benefit to your child, I have a legitimate interest to process and store their data.

Data relating to an individual’s health is classified as ‘Special Category Data’ under Section 9 of the GDPR. The regulations specify that health professionals who are “legally bound to professional secrecy” may have a lawful basis for processing this data. Speech and Language Therapists are legally bound to keep client information confidential and it is under this condition that we process and store personal information.

My responsibilities

I am committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your child’s record. I actively implement security measures to ensure their information is safe, and audit these regularly.

I will not release your personal details to any third party without first seeking your consent, unless this is allowed for or required by law.

I am constantly working to ensure compliance with current data protection regulation.

Your rights

Data Protection legislation gives you, the parent, various rights. The most important of these are as follows:

You have the right to a copy of information I hold about your child
You have the right to ask for your record to be amended if you believe that it is wrong

How to access your child’s records

You can access the information I hold about you by writing to me at the address given below. Please apply in writing rather than in email, so that I receive an original signature to compare against the records I hold.

A copy of your child’s records is provided free of charge.

I will provide access to your child’s records within 30 days of receipt of all necessary information.

Please make your request in writing. This request may NOT be done via email. Please contact me for the address.

If you have any further questions about how I use your information please contact me.

Further information about data protection legislation and your rights is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.