Covid-19 new procedures
Thornhill Chinese Medicine Remains Open for Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs
The clinic is now 'Covid-19 Secure' (since the 6th July) in line with Government guidelines and advice from the British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) and the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine (RCHM).
Your consultation will be by email or phone call a day or two before your appointment. This will help to minimise contact time in the clinic - sad I know but necessary. I can find out what your treatment needs are and answer your questions.
I will also ask you the required Covid-19 questions. We can then use your time in clinic 100% for the treatment.
The main changes include: Social distancing for most of the appointment. Additional hygiene procedures and cleaning. Wider spacing between appointments.
Some restrictions for 'clinically vulnerable' patients - I will provide full details on request or when you book.
Further instructions under each picture below:
The clinic is now 'Covid-19 Secure' (since the 6th July) in line with Government guidelines and advice from the British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) and the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine (RCHM).
Your consultation will be by email or phone call a day or two before your appointment. This will help to minimise contact time in the clinic - sad I know but necessary. I can find out what your treatment needs are and answer your questions.
I will also ask you the required Covid-19 questions. We can then use your time in clinic 100% for the treatment.
The main changes include: Social distancing for most of the appointment. Additional hygiene procedures and cleaning. Wider spacing between appointments.
Some restrictions for 'clinically vulnerable' patients - I will provide full details on request or when you book.
Further instructions under each picture below:
Please wait in your car or on the front lawn until your exact appointment time. I will open the door - no need to knock. If you are not already wearing a mask I will hand you one - please put this on BEFORE you come in.
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Do not close the door. Please follow me into the clinic. No need to remove your shoes.
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 2 metre markings on the floor for your safety. The chair on your left is for you to sit on, you can place any belongings on the other chair. Remove your shoes and leave them on the floor.
Please try not to touch or use any other surfaces.
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Please use the hand sanitiser and sit down until I signal you to move to the couch. We will have already discussed your treatment in an email (or phone) consultation.
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View from where you will be sitting. I will be standing, or perched on Grandad's old wooden buffet (very easily wiped down).
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Thomas says, " Don't worry, Mark is to the rescue".
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Face masks and respiratory hygiene.
Patients are required to wear a surgical mask while in the clinic. You may wear your own mask which fits closely around mouth and nose. Alternatively I will provide you with a fluid-resistant surgical mask. A surgical mask is designed to fit around the face.
Please remember that you wearing a mask mostly protects me and that me wearing a mask mostly protects you.
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Cleaning your hands with hand sanitiser
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How to safely put on a surgical mask
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NHS Test and Trace
To support Track and Trace (which is part of the Department for Health and Social Care) in England, we have been mandated by law to collect and keep a limited record of staff, patients and visitors who come onto our premises for the purpose of contact tracing.
By maintaining records of patients and visitors, and sharing these with Track and Trace where requested, we can help to identify people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
As a patient of Thornhill Chinese Medicine you will be asked to provide some basic information and contact details. The following information will be collected:
- your name and the name of any (pre-arranged) chaperone or child accompanying you.
- a contact phone number for each patient or visitor.
- date of visit and arrival time and departure time
The Track and Trace service as part of safeguarding your personal data, has in place technical, organisational and administrative security measures to protect your personal information that it receives from the clinic, that it holds from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction.
In addition, if you only interact with one member of staff during your visit, the name of the assigned staff member will be recorded alongside your information.
Track and Trace have asked us to retain this information for 21 days from the date of your visit, to enable contact tracing to be carried out by Track and Trace during that period. We will only share information with Track and Trace if it is specifically requested by them.
For example, if another patient at the clinic reported symptoms and subsequently tested positive, Track and Trace can request the log of patient details for a particular time period (for example, this may be all patients who visited on a particular day or time-band, or over a 2-day period).
We will require you to pre-book appointments for visits or to complete a form on arrival.
Under government guidance, the information we collect may include information which we would not ordinarily collect from you and which we therefore collect only for the purpose of contact tracing. Information of this type will not be used for other purposes, and Track and Trace will not disclose this information to any third party unless required to do so by law (for example, as a result of receiving a court order). In addition, where the information is only collected for the purpose of contact tracing, it will be destroyed by us 21 days after the date of your visit.
However, the government guidance may also cover information that we would usually collect and hold onto as part of our ordinary dealings with you (perhaps, for example, your name, date of birth and phone number). Where this is the case, this information only will continue to be held after 21 days and we will use it as we usually would, unless and until you tell us not to.
Your information will always be stored and used in compliance with the relevant data protection legislation.
The use of your information is covered by the General Data Protection Regulations Article 6 (1) (c) – a legal obligation to which we as a venue/establishment are subject to. The legal obligation to which we’re subject, means that we’re mandated by law, by a set of new regulations from the government, to co-operate with the Track and Trace service, in order to help maintain a safe operating environment and to help fight any local outbreak of corona virus.
We do not transfer personal data outside the UK, the EU or to anywhere else.
By law, you have a number of rights as a data subject, such as the right to be informed, the right to access information held about you and the right to rectification of any inaccurate data that we hold about you.
You have the right to request that we erase personal data about you that we hold (although this is not an absolute right).
You have the right to request that we restrict processing of personal data about you that we hold in certain circumstances.
You have the right to object to processing of personal data about you on grounds relating to your particular situation (also again this right is not absolute).
If you are unhappy or wish to complain about how your information is used, you should contact a member of staff in the first instance to resolve your issue.
If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Their website address is www.ico.org.uk.
Mark Popplewell
We keep our privacy notice under regular review, and we will make new versions available on our privacy notice page on this website. This privacy notice was last updated on 4th November 2020.
