Website Policy

information is collected when you browse anonymously. Anonymous browsing is when personally identifiable information is not required by an individual to gain access to our website. In addition, personally identifiable information such as name and contact details (email addresses) are only collected when you make an inquiry. All other information will be requested from you directly.

Information collected is kept for as long as it is needed to service your account and provide services and products requested by you. When your information is no longer needed for these purposes we will destroy or permanently render anonymous any information held about you.

Please be aware that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through West Cessnock Medical Practice provided public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others.

West Cessnock Medical Practice encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from our website. West Cessnock Medical Practice is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of its own websites.

USE AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

The primary purpose in collecting information from you is to enable us to fulfill our business commitments to you in providing our full range of services including management, education and training, consultancy, and to improve these services to you and other clients of West Cessnock Medical Practice. We may use the information you provide to help improve the services we deliver to you, measure consumer interest in West Cessnock Medical Practice services, inform you of other West Cessnock Medical Practice products and services, or comply with requirements under the law.

We will only collect and store information about you that is necessary. The information you provide may be used to offer, provide and improve our services to you and may also be disclosed to other parties such as organisations contracted to operate and maintain West Cessnock Medical Practice databases, provide IT support services and distribute West Cessnock Medical Practice information.

West Cessnock Medical Practice does not permit these parties to use information about you for any other purpose than to perform the services that West Cessnock Medical Practice has instructed them to provide. All suppliers, agents, and third-party companies must sign a confidentiality agreement with West Cessnock Medical Practice before West Cessnock Medical Practice discloses any personal information.

West Cessnock Medical Practice will not, without your consent, disclose personal information for any purpose (a secondary purpose) other than for the main purpose (Primary purpose) of fulfilling our business commitments to you, except where:

1. it is required or authorised by law or for purposes of law enforcement and matters directly related to law enforcement or the prevention of unlawful activity;
2. the Secondary Purpose is related to the primary purpose (or directly related when sensitive information is involved) and there is a reasonable expectation that we would use or disclose the information in the circumstances;
3. West Cessnock Medical Practice reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent any serious and imminent threat to any person’s life, health or safety, or the public’s health or safety.
4. West Cessnock Medical Practice will not otherwise disclose your personal information to any other party without your consent.
5. various Commonwealth and state government departments and agencies, including the Department of Health, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Medicare, and the Department of Human Services, in connection with our services

THIRD-PARTY RELATIONSHIPS

To provide you with a more informative online experience West Cessnock Medical Practice do use the online resources, from time to time, of suppliers, agents, and business partners. Such services comprise links to third-party sites that promote additional services and products. In any such relationship.

West Cessnock Medical Practice takes all reasonable steps to ensure that these parties have and enforce an adequate privacy policy. West Cessnock Medical Practice encourages you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from West Cessnock Medical Practice. West Cessnock Medical Practice is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites outside of the West Cessnock Medical Practice websites.

STORAGE AND SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

West Cessnock Medical Practice will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that you only provide personal information in a secure environment and when the information is no longer needed it will be destroyed or permanently render anonymous.

The security of any information (including personal information) downloaded and stored on your PC/Server etc is the responsibility of you the individual. The individual is also responsible for the correct configuration of the hardware and software he/she uses to access a West Cessnock Medical Practice websites, along with the physical security and maintenance of that equipment.

West Cessnock Medical Practice imposes strict rules on its employees who have access either to the databases that may store site user information or to the servers that host our services and while we cannot guarantee that any unauthorised access, disclosure, loss, misuse, or alteration to your data will not occur, we will take all reasonable steps to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.

You accept the inherent security implications of dealing online over the Internet and will not hold West Cessnock Medical Practice or its agents or suppliers responsible for any breach of security.

TRANS-BORDER DATA FLOWS

Where, for the purpose of fulfilling our business commitments to you, we disclose personal information to persons involved in administering the services, our related entities or business partners (Permitted Persons), and such Permitted Persons are in a foreign country, West Cessnock Medical Practice will not, without your consent, transfer personal information to such Permitted Persons unless:

• we reasonably believe that the Permitted Persons are subject to a law, binding scheme, or contract or we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that the Permitted Persons are subject to a contract that effectively upholds principles for the fair handling of personal information that is substantially similar to the National Principles for the Fair Handling of Personal Information embodied in the Privacy Amendment (Public Sector) Act 2000; or
• the transfer is necessary for:
• the performance of services requested by you; or
• for the purpose of fulfilling our business commitments to you; or
• to implement pre-contractual measures taken in response to a request by you; or
• the transfer is necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract concluded in your interest, between BDS and OTDS and a third party; or
• all of the following apply:
• the transfer is for your benefit; and
• it is impracticable to obtain your consent to the transfer; and
• if it were practicable you would be likely to consent to the transfer.

USE OF COOKIES

The West Cessnock Medical Practice websites use “cookies” to help you personalise your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a webpage server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalise West Cessnock Medical Practice pages, or register with West Cessnock Medical Practice sites or our services, a cookie helps West Cessnock Medical Practice to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as contact addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same West Cessnock Medical Practice websites, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the West Cessnock Medical Practice features you have customised.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the West Cessnock Medical Practice services or websites you visit.

Communication Policy:

If you have a medical query please make an appointment with your doctor by phoning 49915550.

Please do not email us with medical information or asking medical questions.  We are bound by law to protect your privacy by not emailing regarding patients’ medical complaints.

Email Policy:

West Cessnock Medical Practice aims to always seek, and document patients’ consent in their files before sending personal information via email. While doing this we aim to avoid any privacy and patient safety breaches. Privacy legislation does not prescribe how health organisations should send health information to third parties. The law states that any method of communication can be used as long as you take reasonable steps to protect the privacy of the patient and the security of their health information.

Email encryption is ideal but not essential. This practice takes every effort to consider the content of private patient information and can send an email as a pdf with a password. The patient has a right to choose how they receive their password whether by a separate email, text message. Management of email procedure includes; Patient request of information by email documentation via patient file. Inform the patient of the risks of unencrypted email Ideally the practice should obtain permission to use email in writing. If this is not possible.

Social Media Policy :

West Cessnock Medical Practice Social Media Policy  8th  August 2021

Name of social media officer: Practice Manager or Administration Manager

Introduction: This policy provides guidance for members of the practice on using social media internally and externally. The policy helps identify and mitigate risks associated with social media use.

Definition: For the purposes of this policy, ‘social media’ is online social networks used to disseminate information through online interaction.

Purpose: Regardless of whether social media is used for business-related activity or for personal reasons, the following policy requirements apply to all GPs and practice staff of the practice. GPs and practice staff are legally responsible for their online activities, and if found to be in breach of this policy disciplinary action will be taken dependant on the severity of the breach of policy. Use of practice social media accounts

The practice will appoint a staff member as a social media officer responsible for managing and monitoring the practice’s social media accounts. All posts on the practice’s social media website must be approved by this staff member. The practice reserves the right to remove any content at its own discretion.

All posts on the practice Facebook site must be in accordance with this policy as well as being approved by the directors and or practice manager.

Staff conduct on social media: 

When using the practice’s social media, practice staff will not post any material that

• is unlawful, threatening, defamatory, pornographic, inflammatory, menacing, or offensive
• infringes or breaches another person’s rights (including intellectual property rights) or privacy, or misuses the practice’s or another person’s confidential information (eg do not submit confidential information relating to our patients, personal information of staff, or information concerning the practice’s business operations that have not been made public)
• is materially damaging or could be materially damaging to the practice’s reputation or image, or another individual
• is in breach of any of the practice’s policies or procedures
• use social media to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages, or solicit other users to buy or sell products or services or donate money
• impersonate another person or entity (e.g. by pretending to be someone else or another practice employee or other participant when you submit a contribution to social media) or by using another’s registration identifier without permission
• tamper with, hinder the operation of, or make unauthorised changes to the social media sites
• knowingly transmit any virus or other disabling feature to or via the practice’s social media account, or use in any email to a third party, or the social media site
• attempt to do or permit another person to do any of these things
• claim or imply that you are speaking on the practice’s behalf, unless you are authorised to do so
• disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the practice, or to any third party that has disclosed information to the practice
• be defamatory, harassing or in violation of any other applicable law
• include confidential or copyrighted information (e.g. music, videos, text belonging to third parties)
• violate any other applicable policy of the practice.­­

Monitoring social media sites:

The practice’s social media channels are part of our customer service and should be monitored and dealt with regularly. The practice will regularly update this Facebook monthly or in accordance with any necessary updates of practice happenings.

T­­­estimonials:

The practice complies with AHPRA national law and takes reasonable steps to remove testimonials that advertise their health services (which may include comments about the practitioners themselves). The practice is not responsible for removing (or trying to have removed) unsolicited testimonials published on a third-party website or in social media accounts over which they do not have control.

Personal social media use

Staffs are free to personally engage in social media outside of work hours, as long as their actions do not have the potential to bring the practice into disrepute. Employees may not represent personal views expressed as those of this practice.

It is preferred that no posts on personal accounts should display any relationship to West Cessnock Medical Practice or happenings in this practice.

Any social media posts by staff on their personal social media platforms must not reveal confidential information about the practice or a person who uses the practice (e.g., staff should not post information relating to patients or other staff, or information concerning the practice’s business operations

Staff should respect copyright, privacy, fair use, financial disclosure, and other applicable laws when publishing on social media platforms.

Breach of policy: All social media activities must be in line with this policy. Breach of this policy may incur disciplinary action.

Policy review statement: This policy will be reviewed regularly to ensure it is up to date with changes in social media or relevant legislation. Message will be sent out via best practice with any updates.

Following up results and reminders:

reminders are to be followed up by an appointment with your GP. If you are needed to be seen by your GP for results, you will be

ACCESSING AND CHANGING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

West Cessnock Medical Practice attempt to ensure that all personal information collected and stored in its database system is correct and accurate. You may at any time request access to the information we have collected from you and obtain a more in-depth explanation about how the information is used by emailing us at contact@westcessnockmedicalpractice.com.au. We will endeavour to meet or advise of the outcome of a request within 30 business days of receipt.

For any privacy issues or concerns, you can contact us at: contact@westcessnockmedicalpractice.com.au

COMPLAINTS RESOLUTION

West Cessnock Medical Practice is committed to providing consumers with a fair and responsive system for handling and resolving complaints. You have a right to complain and to have your complaint handled efficiently. We believe that receiving a complaint provides us with an opportunity to improve the services we deliver to you and maintain your confidence in West Cessnock Medical Practice and our services.

If at any time you wish to lodge a complaint in respect of the handling, use or disclosure of your personal information by West Cessnock Medical Practice  you may notify us of your complaint via email to: contact@westcessnockmedicalpractice.com.au

We will endeavour to investigate and advise you of the outcome of a complaint within 30 days of receipt of such complaint.

We are constantly improving the West Cessnock Medical Practice websites and the tools you can use to manage the data that you provide to us. Please refer to this page from time to time to see any new policies about the use of these new features.

If the complaint remains unresolved, then an individual can contact:
NSW Health Care Complaints Commission
Locked Mail Bag 18, STAWBERRY HILLS NSW 2012
Phone: 1800 043 159

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

From time to time it may be necessary for West Cessnock Medical Practice to review and revise its Privacy Policy. West Cessnock Medical Practice reserve the right to change its Privacy Policy at any time, and it may notify you about changes to this Privacy Policy by posting an updated version on the websites.

Further Information on Privacy 
Further information may be obtained on privacy issues in Australia by visiting the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner’s web site at www.privacy.gov.au.