Privacy Policy

 

Who we are

Little Talkers Ltd is an Independent Speech and Language Therapy Service. Little Talkers Ltd is registered with Companies House No. 08021735 and is a LTD trade mark name under the No.UK00003087732.

All Speech and Language Therapists on team at Little Talkers Ltd are fully qualified and are registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT).  We are registered Data Controllers with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

Little Talkers Ltd fully appreciates the importance of protecting and managing your data/information and maintaining your privacy.

To ensure that we comply with these requirements all our data management and clinical processes fully recognise the data protection law in force in the UK (e.g. the Data Protection Act 1998 and from 25th May 2018, the Data Protection Act 2018 which includes relevant Articles from the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Please read the following information carefully to understand how we process your personal information.

Little Talkers address is 4 Diana House, Fortuna Mews, Thatcham, Berkshire, RG18 3AW.

When we refer to ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’, we mean the team at Little Talkers Ltd, which includes the administration team, the accounts and finance team and the therapy team.

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details.

How we collect your personal information

The therapy team and healthcare professionals at Little Talkers Ltd collects and maintains information about you and your child to provide you with the best possible therapy intervention.

Little Talkers Ltd are committed to protecting your and your child’s privacy and personal information will only be collected when necessary and used lawfully.

Little Talkers Ltd will collect personal information by written and spoken forms of communication (for example, face to face discussions, phone calls, emails, website enquiries).

Information is collected from parents and with parent permission information will be collected from professionals and other people known to the child. Little Talkers Ltd will only collect information that is relevant or required to provide Speech and Language Therapy Services.

You may use the Little Talkers Ltd website without providing any personal information. However, if you wish to make an enquiry via the website, you are requested to provide relevant contact details, such as your name, e-mail address and contact telephone number to enable us to respond to your enquiry. You may add comments or queries which might also contain personal information. If your enquiry does not result in your child being seen by Little Talkers Ltd then this personal information will be deleted once your enquiry has been dealt with. If your child is subsequently seen by Little Talkers Ltd these details may be added to their personal record. The website contains links to other Internet sites which are outside our control and are not covered by this privacy policy. We are not responsible for data which you provide through any such linked websites.

What kind of personal information do we collect and store

Your records may exist in several formats including electronic, on a secure G suite cloud based database,   paper or a mixture of both, and we deploy many working organisations and approaches to ensure that such information is maintained within a confidential and secure environment.

Records held about you and your child may include the following information:

  • Details about you, such as your address, emergency contact details, other professionals and education settings involved, legal representative.
  • Any contact we have had with your child, such as appointments, therapy visits,
  • Notes, assessments and reports related to your child’s therapy which is deemed to be of sensitive nature
  • Photos and videos of your child as a record of assessment.
  • Accounts details including invoicing and receipts
  • Family structure details (for example, details about who lives at home with the child).
  • Details about your referral, diagnostics procedures, treatment and care
  • Results of any additional relevant investigations
  • Relevant information from other professionals, schools, or relatives or those who care for you or your child.

 

Our use of of personal information

Personal information collected by us via the Little Talkers Ltd website, email, and telephone or face to face, is stored and used by us for the purpose of delivering your child or the service user’s speech and language therapy.

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 the terms and agreements consent is kept within your child’s case notes.

We cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site through emails or our website; any transmission is at your own risk. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Information we collect may also be transferred in connection with any sale or merger of the company or any division or business line of the company to which the information relates.

Any sensitive personal details are stored and accessed in a secure and confidential G Suite Business system and processed in confidence by the Little Talkers Ltd team and shall only be used for the purposes of delivering appropriate speech and language therapy services to your child.

Our Legal Basis for processing
The legal basis for processing your data relies on certain conditions set out GDPR Articles 6 and 9 which is relevant from 25th May 2018 as part of the 2018 UK Data Protection Act GDPR.

In certain circumstances, we process your personal data after obtaining your consent to do so.

It is sometimes necessary to collect and use your personal data for the purposes of our legitimate interests as a business.

We cannot adequately deliver a service to your child without processing their personal information. As it is both a necessity for our service delivery and of benefit to your child, we 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.

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements or to protect our rights, property, or safety or that of our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

 

How we use personal information

The team at Little Talkers Ltd uses personal information to:

  • Communicate with parents via post, email, telephone, mobile messages and SMS for the purpose of:

confirming and preparing for appointments, general communication in between appointments, sending you reports and programmes for your child (always password protected or through encrypted email services), copying you in to communications with other professionals involved with your child, sending you resources and sending you invoices and receipts.

  • To prepare, plan and provide services (such as assessment and therapy sessions).
  • Communicate with professionals and other people known to the child (if parents have given permission).
  • Plan and deliver Speech and Language Therapy services.
  • To create and send invoices.
  • To complete audits to assess and improve our service. Results of audits are always presented with all client identities removed.
  • To communicate with others if this is required by the law.
  • For management and administration, for example surnames of clients are included in our password protected accounting and secure online G Suite Business system. Whenever personal identifiers are not needed for these tasks, if possible we remove them from the information we use.
  • Train and manage the employment and contracts of our team who deliver these services to you and your child.
  • Train and manage the employment of other professionals who will play an integral part in delivering these services to you and your child.

 

 

How we store personal information

All information about you, your child and their speech and language therapy is stored securely to ensure that we have a complete record of our service to them.

We use a secure electronic cloud-based system called G Suite Business to send and receive emails and to electronically store personal information from you as a client.  G Suite Business is compliant with general data protection regulations.

Please see the following link for more information:

https://cloud.google.com/security/gdpr/

We also store personal paper based information in locked up storage units. Any paper based confidential information such as case history forms, consent forms, assessments, programmes, targets and reports are stored securely in accordance with Data Protection Regulations.

We try to ensure that all documents which contain confidential information such as reports and programmes, are also individually password protected or sent securely through the secure online cloud sharing system.

Videos may be taken of clients with parental consent. These are temporarily stored on encrypted and password protected IT equipment. These may then be viewed by the Little Talkers Ltd team 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 paper based confidential information will be taken out of the Little Talkers Ltd secure and locked storage. When your child’s information is taken out of the therapy bases it will be kept within the GDPR regulations.

The therapy team at Little Talkers Ltd may have to access the secure online sharing and storage system while overseas. As a parent, you may have to access your emails or personal information from us while overseas. The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy. All our emails sent through the secure online sharing and storage system will be encrypted.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) implementation on our secure online and sharing system ensures that the Little Talkers Ltd team can send and receive emails that contain personal information including health records.

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 and 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 the full document can be found at: http://www.hcpcuk.org/assets/documents/10004EDFStandardsofconduct,performanceandethics.pdf

 

 

Our responsibilities

Little Talkers Ltd is committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your child’s record. We actively implement security measures to ensure their information is safe, and audit these regularly. We are constantly working to ensure compliance with current data protection regulation.

Little Talkers Ltd has a breach of privacy procedure if any personal information is lost, damaged or inappropriately accessed.

The director of Little Talkers Ltd is notified in writing, the director will notify the ICO about how to act and will contact the client if advised to do so.

Your rights as our client

Data protection legislation gives you, the parent, client, various rights.

  • You have the right to a copy of information we hold about your child.
  • You have the right to ask for your record to be amended if you believe that it is wrong.
  • You can access the information we hold about you by writing to us at the address given below. Please apply in writing rather than by email, so that we receive an original signature to compare against the records we hold. A copy of your child’s records is provided free of charge. We will provide access to your child’s records within 30 days of receipt of all necessary information. Please make your request in writing to: Subject Access Requests Little Talkers Ltd, 4 Diana House Fortuna Mews, Thatcham, RG18 3AW UK, or email us at admin@littletalkers.co.uk

What we need you to do

If you have any further questions about how we use your information, please contact admin@littletalkers.co.uk

Further information about data protection legislation and your rights is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office or by calling (+44) (0) 303 123 1113, GMT 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

We need to make sure that the information we have on you and your child is accurate, up-to-date and still relevant. As a result you will need to tell us promptly if there are any changes to the information that you have provided us.

 

LITTLE TALKERS LTD, 4 DIANA HOUSE FORTUNA MEWS, THATCHAM, BERKSHIRE, RG18 3AW, www.littletalkers.co.uk, (+44) (0)7706222447, (+44) (0)2081230748