Privacy Notice dated 28th February 2023

Who are we?

Thechesiretao.co.uk is owned and operated by The Cheshire Tao Ltd and is the data controller for the purposes of applicable data protection legislation. This statement tells you how The Cheshire Tao Ltd will use your personal information collected while using the Thechesiretao.co.uk website and social media pages.

We recognize that your privacy and the protection of your personal information is important to you and we take your privacy seriously.

We will process your personal information in compliance with applicable data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR).

If you would like to find out more about the legislation and your rights, please visit https://ico.org.uk/.

This document sets out how we will use any personal data that we may collect and your rights in relation to your personal data.

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 which 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. 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 – 16 apply to patients, prospective patients, former patients visitors to the clinic and enquiries through our contact us forms, phone, post, social media messaging or email.

1. We use your name, address, telephone number and email address to make and rearrange appointments as well as to send out appointment reminders. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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 Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ATCM).

4. 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.

5. We use your presenting complaint and symptoms reported by you for the purposes of making a full traditional diagnosis, formulating treatment strategy and treatment planning.

6. We use any relevant medical and family history you have told us for making a full traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis, formulating treatment strategy and treatment planning.

7. 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 ATCM's Code of Professional Conduct.

8. We use our clinical findings about your health and wellbeing for making a full traditional diagnosis, and formulating treatment strategy and treatment planning.

9. 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 traditional diagnosis, treatment strategy and planning; and to secure evidence in the event of criminal proceedings, civil litigation, an insurance claim or complaint.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. In the event of an adverse incident occurring to any of our patients we report the matter to The ATCM and our insurance company to enable the insurance company to deal with any potential claims and to help The ATCM to develop its safe practice guidelines, as well as providing research data and information for the ATCM’s insurers and other interested parties.

14. 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.

15. All treatment records, including contact details are kept as paper files and stored in secured locked filing cabinets accessed exclusively by the practitioner, Nadine Tallis. Some contact details such as phone numbers and email addresses may be kept on a secure electronic device used exclusively by the practitioner Nadine Tallis, used only to contact you regarding your appointments or in relation to your treatment.

16. When 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.

Section 17-19 applies to those who complain about our services:

17. When we receive a complaint from a person we make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

18. We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide. We may need to provide personal information collected and processed in relation to complaints to the ATCM or our insurance company.

19. 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.

Sharing your personal data

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

- 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 child, children or vulnerable adults; or

- with my regulatory body, The ATCM, 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.

Your personal data will not be shared with:

- Any 3rd parties without your explicit consent

How long do we keep your personal data?

All data is kept as paper files and stored in secured locked filing cabinets, accessed exclusively by the practitioner, Nadine Tallis. We keep your personal data for no longer than reasonably necessary.

We keep patient records for a period of 7 years in accordance with The ATCM’s code of Professional Conduct and Professional Practice https://www.atcm.co.uk/about-us/code-of-conduct where the PDF can be accessed.

After this period all data is destroyed by shredding.

Your rights and the legal basis for processing your personal data

We process your information:

a) For the purposes of fulfilment of a contract with you or because you have asked us to do something before entering into a contract (e.g. provide you with more information on our services)

b) With your consent to send to you marketing information from The Cheshire Tao Ltd and you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us at thecheshiretao@gmail.com

You also have a number of other rights. You can:

- ask us to update or rectify any information we hold about you that is no longer accurate;

- ask to see a copy of the information we hold about you, free of charge;

- ask us to delete or erase the information we hold about you;

- ask us to stop processing your data for a period of time;

- ask us to supply you with a copy of your data in a commonly used, machine-readable format for the purposes of transmitting that data to another organisation;

Exercising your Rights or to contact us

If you would like to exercise one or more of these rights, please contact us

https://www.thecheshiretao.co.uk/contactus/ or

The Cheshire Tao Ltd, 191 Chester Road, Northwich, Cheshire, CW8 4AG, United Kingdom

Tel: 07872 834 343

Email: thecheshiretao@gmail.com

Right to complain to the data protection regulator

You also have the right to complain to the UK data protection regulator (the Information Commissioner's Office, or ICO) about our use of your data.

The ICO can be contacted at the following address:

The Information Commissioner's Office

Water Lane, Wycliffe House, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

Tel: +44 303 123 1113

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

Website: https://ico.org.uk/

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.