Aberdeen Consulting Rooms  - Privacy Notice

We are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy when we deal with your personal information.  The following privacy notice gives you details on the information we collect about you, how we protect and use it, and your rights.  If you have any questions about how we use your information, please send an email to info@acrltd.co or write to Dr A Shand, Aberdeen Consulting Rooms, 7 Queens Gardens, Aberdeen, AB15 7YD. 

Dr A Shand is the ‘data controller’ for the personal information you provide to the Practice.  As the data controller, Dr A Shand responsible for, and controls the processing of, your personal information by the Practice. Dr A Shand’s clinic, operating under Aberdeen Consulting Rooms Ltd, is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  

Personal information collected by us

You may give the Practice personal information by filling in our Agreement to Private Treatment Form, by speaking with us over the telephone, emailing us or otherwise corresponding with us. The personal information you give us may include basic details such as your name, address, e-mail address, phone number, date of birth, next-of-kin contacts, GP information and medical insurance information for example.

We will also collect information relating to your health and medical history as well as details about the treatment you receive (special category information).  The information you provide to Dr A Shand may be recorded in writing as part of the history taking. 

We will also collect and process personal information that you and other medical professionals may send to us, such as referral letters, reports or assessments, or results of blood tests for example.  We may also collect personal information about you that is given to us by your family members or other individuals known to you. 

Your personal information is held securely on a secure cloud-based electronic patient medical record database Semble (https://www.semble.io/patient-management ).

How we use your personal information 

We will use your personal information to carry out our obligations under our contract with you as detailed in the Agreement to Private Treatment and to pursue our legitimate interests, that is, in order to provide healthcare services. Please note, that in certain circumstances your personal information may need to be shared with a Psychiatrist colleague in order to ensure continuity of your care and this would only be on an as needed basis and, unless in an emergency situation, your consent would be requested prior to your information being shared.

We will also use your personal information to ensure you or your health insurance provider receives the correct bill, as well as to ensure that you receive the information and services that you request from us.

Your personal information will also be used to notify you of any changes to the information currently set out in our Agreement to Private Treatment and for other administrative purposes. 

Disclosure of your personal information 

We may disclose some of your personal information to: 

1.Other clinicians involved in your care, including your GP or other referring professional, pharmacists, therapists or other medical professionals because these organisations may require your information to assist them in the provision of your direct healthcare needs. 
If you do not consent to Dr A Shand sharing information with your GP, Dr A Shand will discuss with you the most appropriate way forward depending on your circumstances.  

In cases where there is a potential risk to your health (for example if you are acutely unwell, or have relapsed in severe addiction or have intense suicidal thoughts), Dr A Shand may discuss with you that he is not able to continue holding responsibility for your psychiatric care unless you provide consent for him to speak to third parties (such as a family member, your GP or local NHS Mental Health Services such as the Crisis team) in order to ensure your safety and to avoid misleading other people involved in your care.  If this is the case, Dr A Shand will discuss this with you with a view to arriving at an acceptable solution. 

In certain emergency or extreme circumstances Dr A Shand may contact a third party (usually the Next of Kin you have provided in the Registration Form or a health professional involved in your care such as your GP or a Therapist). This can happen if there is a significant risk to your health or safety or that of others, or if there is a safeguarding concern or a situation where there is a concern about your mental capacity (as per the Mental Capacity Act) or there is a need for a Mental Health Act Assessment (as per the Mental Health Act).  

This is in accordance with the standards of practice for all Psychiatrists licensed to practice in the UK. In every case, Dr A Shand will make his best effort to discuss the situation with you prior to contacting anyone. 

2.  Your health insurance provider.  We will seek your consent before sharing medical information with your health insurance provider. 

3.  The Care Quality Commission, the Court or other regulatory or public body if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, including if a crime is being investigated or a formal court order has been issued; 

4.  Our indemnity organisation/insurer and our solicitors in the event of a civil claim being brought against the Practice; 

5.  Our invoicing department to enable the processing of your payment details. In these cases, only the minimum  information such your name and email will be shared, as well as information relevant to the invoice such as the date of the consultation or other services charged such as a repeat prescription. 

6.  Data Processors.  Data processors are third parties who process data on our behalf.  We have Data Processing Agreements in place with our data processors which means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do so.  Our data processors will hold your personal information securely and will retain it for the period we instruct.  Our data processors will not share your personal information with any individual or organisation apart from us.

The data processors we use are:

1.Organisations which manage financial transactions as mentioned above, as well as the HealthCode software platform which allows us to send eBills to health insurance companies (Healthcode Ltd)

2. Online pharmacies if used.

3.The Priory

Keeping your personal information secure

All personal information you provide to us or we collect from you is stored on secure servers and any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology.    

Whilst we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information, we are all aware that the transmission of information via the internet is not 100% secure and therefore we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that is transferred from you or to you via the internet.   Once we have received or collected your personal information we will adhere to our strict procedures and security protocols to try to prevent unauthorised access. 

Retention of your personal information 

By law, mental health records need to be kept by the Practice for 20 years after the last contact with the patient.  If you have not been in touch with the Practice for more than a year, you will no longer be considered an active patient. Your personal information will remain archived in our secure electronic database and will no longer be displayed as an active record. We need to retain your records even if you are no longer an active patient in order to comply with our ethical, regulatory and legal obligations. 

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2018) you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

We will generally submit this information to you electronically using secure encrypted email, unless you specifically ask for this information to be sent to you by other method such as standard email or post.

In addition to the above rights, you may also:

- Request that we amend any inaccurate factual data about you.

- Request that access to your data is restricted.

- Request that some of your data be erased where there is no longer an ongoing need for processing.

Please note that we cannot erase any medical records as we have a statutory duty to keep them as per the Data Protection Act 1998. We are professionally and legally obliged not to alter any medical records. However, if you disagree with any information contained on your medical records, a note can be added to the relevant entry to explain to any future readers that the patient disagrees with this information, and you can add an explanation if you wish object to the processing of your personal data and your objection will be considered.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or to make a request for any personal information we may hold (a ‘Data Subject Access Request’) you can email us at info@acrltd.co or write to us at Dr A Shand, Aberdeen Consulting Rooms, 7 Queens Gardens, Aberdeen, AB15 7YD.

Our website and cookies

The only website this Privacy Notice applies to is Aberdeen Consulting Rooms website. If you use a link to any other website from theAberdeen Consulting Rooms website then you will need to read their respective privacy notice. We take no responsibility (legal or otherwise) for the content of other websites.

We will only collect personal information volunteered by you via our website, such as:

- Feedback from surveys and online forms.

- Email addresses.

- Preferred means of communication.

This personal information about you will be used to exercise our functions, and to improve the quality and safety of care.

We use Google Analytics to monitor use of our website. Google Analytics uses cookies to help analyse how people use our site, and this information will include your IP address and the pages you visit. You may refuse the use of cookies using your browser’s settings.

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This Privacy Policy was last updated on 1 August 2023.