Privacy Policy

Jill Storstein Acupuncture

Purpose of privacy notice

The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the GDPR). This legislation will replace current data privacy law, giving more rights to you as an individual and more obligations to organisations holding your personal data.

One of the rights is a right to be informed, which means we have to give you even more information than we do now about the way in which we use, share and store your personal information.

This means that we will be publishing a new privacy notice so you can access this information, along with information about the increased rights you have in relation to the information we hold on you and the legal basis on which we are using it.

This new privacy notice comes into effect and will be published on our website on 25 May 2018. This notice has been amended to reflect changes in practice locations and storage of electronic data as of 11 November 2020.

Who are we?

Jill Storstein is the data controller of Jill Storstein Acupuncture. This means we decide how your personal data is processed and for what purposes.

Whose information does this privacy notice apply to?

This privacy notice applies to information we collect from:

patients;
prospective patients;
former patients;
visitors to our website;

What is personal data?

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into such possession. Examples of personal data we may hold about you include your contact and appointment details.

Special category data is a sub-category of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. Examples of special category data we may hold about you include your patient notes.

How do we process your personal data?

We comply with our obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date; by storing and destroying it securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data. We use your personal data for the purposes set out below.

Sections 1 – 15 apply to our patients, prospective patients, former patients and visitors to our clinics.

We use your name, address, telephone number and email address to make and rearrange appointments. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.
Some patients and prospective patients tell us about their medical conditions and medication by email or online enquiry forms. We are unable to send or receive encrypted emails so you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send us is within the bounds of the law.
We keep a permanent attendance register which records all appointments for patients attending our clinic to keep a record of when you were treated for tax purposes and to secure potential evidence in the event of a criminal prosecution, civil litigation, insurance claim or complaint to my regulatory body, the British Acupuncture Council.
We may use your date of birth to help identify patients with the same name to avoid mistakes being made as to safe and appropriate treatment, for identification purposes if referring a patient to another health practitioner, and for identification purposes if writing to a registered medical practitioner so that they correctly identify the patient.
We use your presenting complaint and symptoms reported by you for the purposes of making a full Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis, formulating treatment strategy, to inform a functional nutrition assessment and for treatment planning.
We use any relevant medical and family history you have told us for making a full TCM diagnosis, formulating treatment strategy to inform a functional nutrition assessment and for treatment planning.
We use your GP’s name and address in the event that we need to contact your GP including in an emergency and because it is a mandatory requirement in the British Acupuncture Code of Professional Conduct.
We use our clinical findings about your health and wellbeing for making a full TCM diagnosis, to inform functional nutrition analysis, for formulating treatment strategy and treatment planning.
We keep a record of and refer to that record of any treatment given and details of progress of your case, including reviews of treatment planning to enable us to: review the full TCM diagnosis, functional nutrition assessment, treatment strategy and planning; and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.
We record and use any information and advice that we have given, especially when referring patients to any other health professional, to help you to receive the most appropriate treatment and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.
We record any decisions made in conjunction with you to help you to receive the most appropriate treatment and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.
We keep accident records for any patients, visitors or staff who are involved in accidents at our clinic in accordance with UK Health and Safety legislation including the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) to comply with the law and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.
In the event of an adverse incident occurring to any of our patients we report the matter to the British Acupuncture Council and the our insurance company to enable the insurance company to deal with any potential claims and to help the British Acupuncture Council to develop its safe practice guidelines, as well as providing research data and information for the BAcC’s insurers and other interested parties.
Where relevant we maintain records of the patient’s consent to treatment, or the consent of their next-of-kin in order to be able to prove that the patient (and/or parent/guardian/next of kin) has given informed consent to treatment to secure evidence in the event of a civil claim, criminal prosecution, insurance claim or complaint.
Storage of your data (For former patients of Jill Storstein at the Albany Street Clinic, please also see the Privacy Policy for the Albany Street Clinic here: http://albanystreetclinic.co.uk/privacy-notice/

a. Appointments: We store your data securely. From June 2020 appointments made for the Aberfeldy Clinic with Jill Storstein are recorded on an online booking system (Cliniko) which is password protected. You name, telephone number and email address are held on this system along with your appointment history. We will use your email address to send you a confirmation and reminder of your appointment. We will use your email address or telephone number in the event of you missing an appointment or to follow up. Prior to June 2020, appointments made for the Aberfeldy Clinic were recorded in a paper diary with your name, appointment time and sometimes your telephone number. Paper diaries from previous years are kept for tax recording purposes and are stored in a locked filing cabinet.

b. Electronic data: All electronic data we hold are held securely. Emails may be kept as part of your patient records. The data controller’s email account is protected by a strong password and the password is changed regularly. The electronic devices used are an Apple Laptop and iPhone. Both are protected by passwords and are kept up-to-date with security updates.

c. Patient Files: We take the security of your data seriously.

Former Patients at the Albany Street Clinic in Edinburgh

For former patients, prior to March 2020 at the Albany Street Clinic, paper copies of your files are kept in a locked filing cabinet. If you gave your consent, your information may be shared with other practitioners at the Albany Street clinic if you are also seeing them for treatment and it would benefit your treatment to do so.

Former and Current Patients at the Aberfeldy Clinic

If you are a patient at the Aberfeldy Clinic, both electronic files and essential paper files (e.g. paper copies of blood results) are kept. From June 2020, electronic files are kept using patient management software, Cliniko. They are GDPR compliant and password protected. You can read more on their Privacy Policies here: https://www.cliniko.com/policies/privacy/. Paper files are kept at the clinic in a locked filing cabinet and are accessible only to the data controller. The clinic is kept locked when not in use.

Archived paper files of patients who have not attended for treatment for 5 or more years or from other clinics where Jill Storstein has operated are stored in a secure locked filing box at her home address. Occasionally, it may be necessary to transport your paper files between clinic locations and the data controller’s home address. This would be for a reason such as further research or preparation of additional information to help in your treatment or moving files for secure archive storage. In such instances your files will be carefully guarded by the data controller in transit.

Section 16 applies to those who complain about our services

16. If we were to receive a complaint from a person we would create a log of the complaint and a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide. We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. If a complainant doesn’t want information identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis. We may need to provide personal information collected and processed in relation to complaints to the British Acupuncture Council or our insurance company.

We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for two years from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.

Sections 17 – 20 apply to our website users

17. When someone visits our website we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.

18. We use website cookies to improve user experience of our website by enabling our website to 'remember' users, either for the duration of their visit - using a 'session cookie' - or for repeat visits - using a 'persistent cookie'. You have the option to “Decline Cookies” using the banner at the bottom of the webpage when you first visit the site.

19. We use a third party service (Wix.com) to help maintain the security and performance of our website. To deliver this service it processes the IP addresses of visitors to our website. You can read more about this here: https://support.wix.com/en/article/cookies-and-your-wix-site

20. We use a third party service, (Wix.com), to host our website including publishing our blog. This site is hosted at (Wix.com), which is run by (Wix.com). We use Wix Analytics to collect anonymous information about users' activity on the site, for example the number of users viewing pages on the site, to monitor and report on the effectiveness of the site and help us improve it.

Sharing your personal data

Your personal data will be treated as strictly confidential, and will be shared:

with named third parties only with your explicit consent;
with the relevant authority such as the police or a court, if necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject e.g. a court order;
with your doctor or the police if necessary to protect yours or another person’s life;
with the police or a local authority for the purpose of safeguarding a children or vulnerable adults; or
with my regulatory body, the British Acupuncture Council, or my insurance company in the event of a complaint or insurance claim being brought against me; or
my solicitor in the event of any investigation or legal proceedings being brought against me.

For further details about the situations when information about you might be shared please see the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/personal-information/sharing-my-info/

How long do we keep your personal data?

We keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary. We keep patient records for a period of 7 years after the date of your last appointment in accordance with the British Acupuncture Code of Professional Conduct. In the case of minors records will be kept until the patient reaches the age of twenty-five (seven years after reaching eighteen).

https://www.acupuncture.org.uk/public-content/effective-practice/bacc-professional-codes.html.

After this time, your data will be shredded and electronic files deleted.

In the event of the data controller becoming seriously ill or deceased, patients’ files at the Albany Street Clinic will be looked after by Rachael Forrest, BAcC member and co-owner at the clinic. Patients’ files at the Aberfeldy Clinic will be maintained and kept securely by the data controller’s spouse and will be disposed of in accordance with the data retention policy detailed above.

At any time you may request that changes are made to your contact details.

Your rights and your personal data

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have certain rights with respect to your personal data as set out below.

The right to request a copy of your personal data which we hold about you (please note a fee to cover cost of copying and time spent doing so will be incurred).
The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date.
The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for us to retain such data (please note data must be retained in accordance with the data retention timescales detailed above for legal reasons).
The right to withdraw your consent to the processing at any time. This right does not apply where we are processing information using a lawful purpose other than consent.
The right to request that we provide you with your personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability), (where applicable) [This right only applies where the processing is based on consent or is necessary for the performance of a contract with you and in either case the we are processing the data by automated means].
The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing.
The right to object to the processing of personal data, (where applicable) [This right only applies where processing is based on legitimate interests (or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority); direct marketing and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics].
The right to be informed if your data is lost. We shall also inform the Information Commissioner’s Office in accordance with the time limits in the GDPR.
The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

For further details about these rights please see the Information Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/is-my-information-being-handled-correctly/

Further processing

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. Where and whenever necessary, we will seek your prior consent to the new processing.

Contact Details

To exercise all relevant rights, queries of complaints please in the first instance contact us at:

Jill Storstein Acupuncture

2 Kenmore Street

Aberfeldy

PH15 2BL

email: jillstorstein@gmail.com

telephone: 07772 501810.

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/ or at the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SK9 5AF.

END OF PRIVACY NOTICE