Home Instead Senior Care is strongly committed to protecting an individual’s right to privacy. As such, Home Instead Senior Care deals with the collection, security, quality, use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the National Privacy Principles contained within the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000. This Privacy Policy aims to explain some of these Principles and how they may apply to you.

Collection of Information

Home Instead Senior Care collects personal information about its clients to assist us in the provision of quality care services and about its employees so that we can effectively train, manage and ensure the safety of each staff member.

Client Information is collected to allow us to provide quality services to each client. It may range from the everyday personal information (eg addresses and phone numbers) to sensitive information including for example (but not limited to) information about your:

• racial or ethnic origin;
• membership of political association or religious beliefs, affiliations or philosophical beliefs;
• general information about the status of your health or disability;
• details of current medications, allergies or food preferences;
• details relating to your residence (including stairs, wheelchair access and home aids etc); or information about
• your expressed wishes about the future provision of your health services.

The National Privacy Principles or NPPs set the minimum standard about the collection, use, disclosure and storage of health information. Your information privacy rights mean that you are entitled to:

• Be told about what happens to your health information;
• Have more choice and control over your information;
• Ask to see what health information is kept about you and, if you think it is wrong, you can ask for it to be corrected;
• Be told why and when we may need to share your health information, for example to ensure that you receive quality care.

Personal and sensitive information about a client can in most cases, only be disclosed with your consent. There may be times when a client is not able to make their own decision about how their information is handled or staff may need to disclose sensitive information about a client to a person who has a valid reason for accessing this information, such as a doctor or pharmacist or any other person who is providing treatment or care to the client. Prior to providing any services to a client, we will discuss the management of health information with the client or as appropriate with the client’s responsible person, such as a carer, family member or guardian to ensure quality of care and management of personal and sensitive information at all times.

Employee Information is collected to allow us to effectively recruit, train, manage and ensure the safety of each staff member. Information collected about our employees includes:

(a) Personal information such as but not limited to:

• Names and address and contact details
• References and results of inquiries that we might make with nominated referees including former employers, work colleagues, professional associations;
• Performance feedback (whether positive or negative)

Your personal information may be used by us in connection with your work placement; your performance appraisals; our identification of your training needs; our management of any complaint, investigation or inquiry in which you are involved including insurance claims.

(b) Sensitive information such as but not limited to:

• racial or ethnic origin;
• political opinion;
• memberships of political associations or religious beliefs, affiliations etc;
• health or disability information;

Your sensitive information may be used to enable us to match employees interests with the interests of our clients. In most cases this sensitive information is for internal use only and can only be disclosed with your consent.

Management of personal Information

Home Instead Senior Care will take every appropriate measure to ensure that:

• Any information about its clients and staff is secure;
• It provides appropriate training for staff members about the management of personal and sensitive information of its clients;
• It does not disclose any information kept about its clients to anyone except those who have a valid reason for accessing this information;
• It will not release any information about its clients unless required to do so under the Law or if ordered to do so by a Court.

Access to personal information

Subject to some exceptions that are set out in the National Privacy Principles, an employee or client can gain access to the personal and sensitive information that we hold about them. We do refuse access if it would interfere with the privacy rights of other persons or if breaches any confidentiality that attaches to that information.

Information collected from our website http://www.homeinstead.com.au
Web site activity data is collected throughout our website and includes information on domains, browsers, operating systems, and pages accessed. This information is used only for standard reporting purposes to improve site content and display. No attempt is made to track the activity of individuals or preserve any information relating to identified users.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or wish to view personal information kept about you by Home Instead Senior Care you should contact:

The Privacy Officer
Home Instead Senior Care
Level 11 Toowong Tower, Toowong, QLD 4066
Tel: 07 3720 8400