How we look after your information.

Who we are

St Ives Doctors is operated by St Ives MC Pty Ltd (ABN 91 623 296 800), at Shop 11, St Ives Plaza Shopping Village, 351 Mona Vale Road, St Ives NSW 2075. The practice was previously known as North St Ives Medical Practice.

We handle personal and health information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Australian Privacy Principles and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW). The Practice Director is responsible for privacy at the practice.

What we collect

We collect only what we need to look after you safely. This usually includes:

• your name, date of birth, address, phone, email and emergency contact
• your Medicare, DVA, pension or health fund details, and your healthcare identifiers
• your medical history, medicines, allergies, immunisations, family and social history
• the notes, results, referrals and letters created while we care for you
• payment and billing details

How we collect it

Wherever we can, we collect information from you directly: when you register, book, attend an appointment, or contact us by phone, email or online.

We may also receive information about you from other people involved in your care, such as specialists, hospitals, pathology and imaging providers, pharmacists, your previous GP, My Health Record, or a family member or carer where that is appropriate.

You can choose not to give us some information. If you do, we may not be able to provide the care you need, or claim Medicare benefits on your behalf.

Why we collect it and how we use it

We use your information mainly to provide your health care. We also use it for things directly related to that care:

• contacting you about results, appointments and follow-up
• reminders and recalls, including contact from our Preventative Care Coordinator about a check or review that could be due
• communicating with other providers involved in your care
• billing and Medicare claims
• quality improvement, clinical audit and accreditation, which keep the practice safe
• supervised teaching of medical students, only with your agreement on the day

We use your information for any other purpose only with your consent, or where the law requires or allows it. You can ask us at any time not to send you reminders or preventative care invitations.

Who we share it with

As part of your care we share relevant information with the people treating you, such as specialists, hospitals, allied health and pathology and imaging providers.

We also disclose information where the law requires or authorises it, for example to Medicare and other government agencies, for mandatory notification of certain diseases, under a court order, or where there is a serious threat to someone's life, health or safety.

Trusted service providers help us run the practice, including our clinical software, online booking, messaging and IT support. They may handle information on our behalf. We check their privacy and security arrangements and limit their access to what the service needs.

Outside these situations, we do not share your information with anyone without your consent. We never sell personal information.

My Health Record and electronic prescriptions

If you have a My Health Record, we may upload information such as a shared health summary or event summary, and view what is there, as part of your care. Tell your GP if you would prefer that something is not uploaded.

Prescriptions may be sent electronically through the national prescription delivery services, and referrals and letters are sent by secure messaging where the receiving provider supports it.

Online booking, messages, email and telehealth

Online bookings and appointment reminders are provided through HotDoc, which has its own privacy policy. New patient registration is completed through a secure form, not through this website.

We may contact you by SMS, phone or email using the details you give us. Ordinary email is not secure, so please do not email symptoms, results or other health details. If you ask us to email something to you, we will take that as your consent to send it that way.

Telehealth appointments are held by phone or video. We do not record them.

AI note-taking in consultations

Some of our doctors use an AI tool to help write up the notes of a consultation. Your doctor will always ask for your consent first. You are free to say no, and declining makes no difference to your care.

Your doctor reviews the notes and remains responsible for your record.

This website

This website does not itself collect health information. Some links open forms run by other services: online booking through HotDoc, records transfer requests through Jotform, with payment taken by Stripe, and our feedback form through Team Forms in our Microsoft 365. What you enter there is held by that service and handled by us under this policy. Enquiry links open an email to the practice.

Like most websites, ours records general information about visits, such as pages viewed and the type of device used, through cookies and analytics tools. We use this to improve the site. It does not identify you by name, and you can turn cookies off in your browser.

Practice news and updates

From time to time we send patients news about the practice, such as changes to our services, hours or location. Every message includes a way to unsubscribe, or you can ask us to stop at any time.

How we store and protect it

Your clinical record is held in our secure clinical software. Access is limited to members of the practice team who need it for their role, and everyone who works here signs a confidentiality agreement.

Our systems are protected by individual logins, restricted access, secure remote access and regular backups.

We keep health records for as long as the law requires: for adults, at least seven years after your last visit, and for children, until they turn 25. When records are no longer required they are securely destroyed or de-identified.

Information held overseas

Your clinical record is stored in Australia. Some of the services we use for email, practice news and website analytics store limited information, such as contact details, on servers overseas, including in the United States. We check the privacy safeguards of a provider before we use it.

Seeing or correcting your information

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, or for a copy of it, and you can ask us to correct anything that is inaccurate or out of date.

Please put the request in writing to privacy@stivesdoctors.com.au or hand it in at the front desk. We will confirm your identity and respond within 30 days. There is no charge for making a request. A reasonable fee may apply for the cost of copying or preparing records.

In limited circumstances the law allows us to decline, for example where access would put someone's safety at risk. If that happens we will tell you why in writing.

To move your records to another practice, see records transfer.

Dealing with us anonymously

You can ask a general question without telling us who you are. For most health care, though, we need to know who you are in order to treat you safely and for Medicare to pay a benefit.

Children, young people and people acting for you

Parents and guardians generally make privacy decisions for young children. As young people mature they can make their own, and a GP will see a teenager confidentially where they are able to understand and decide for themselves.

If someone else acts for you, such as a guardian, an enduring guardian or a person you have authorised, we will ask to see evidence of that before sharing your information with them.

If something goes wrong

If your information is lost, or accessed or disclosed without authority, we act straight away to contain it. Where a breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will tell you and notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

Concerns and complaints

If you are concerned about how we have handled your information, please tell us. Write to the Practice Director at privacy@stivesdoctors.com.au, or call (02) 9144 7340 and ask for a confidential response.

We will acknowledge your complaint, look into it and give you our response within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied, you can contact:

Federal

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, 1300 363 992, oaic.gov.au

New South Wales

Information and Privacy Commission NSW, 1800 472 679, ipc.nsw.gov.au

Health care

Health Care Complaints Commission, 1800 043 159, hccc.nsw.gov.au

People who work with us

We also hold personal information about employees, contractors, independent GPs and job applicants, including qualifications, registration and, where relevant to their duties, immunisation records. It is handled under the same policy, kept separately from patient records and available only to those who need it. Questions can be directed to the Practice Director.

Changes to this policy

We review this policy every year and update this page when it changes. A printed copy is available free of charge from the front desk, and we can provide it in another format on request.

Last updated October 2026.