Safe & Expert Addiction Treatment & Detox
How Smarmore Castle Private Clinic Protects Personal Health Information
What Is Personal Health Information?
- It is information which identifies you. This will include your name and address, date of birth, information about your care and treatment as well as your medical history.
- Doctors, nurses, and therapists need to make notes on paper or computer systems in order to manage your treatment while you are in Smarmore Castle Private Clinic. These form part of your medical record and will contain personal health information.
Where possible, information will be used in such a way that you cannot be identified.
How and Where Is My Personal Health Information Kept?
- The patient care record can be paper based, electronic, or both.
- Your patient care record is stored securely within the clinic in a locked room accessed through another locked room, or securely in electronic format. Only authorised personnel with a need to see them are permitted access.
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How Is My Personal Information Used?
- Smarmore Castle Private Clinic uses your information to give you the care and treatment that you need. It will share relevant information with all treatment staff involved in your care.
- Information will be shared with your General Practitioner who referred you to hospital.
- Information about you may be shared with other agencies e.g. social workers, but only with your informed consent and only for the purposes of your ongoing treatment. Where possible, information will be used in such a way that you cannot be identified. You have the right to opt out of such non-essential uses of your information if you so wish.
How Does Smarmore Castle Private Clinic Keep My Personal Health Information Confidential?
- Your personal information is safeguarded by data protection.
- All staff have a professional duty to keep information about you strictly confidential.
- Only relevant information is shared within the multi-disciplinary team or with other healthcare professionals, such as your General Practitioner, who are responsible for your ongoing care.
- The Clinic will not share your personal health information with relatives or friends without your permission.
Mandatory Disclosures
- In exceptional circumstances the law requires hospitals and clinics to share personal information without your permission, e.g. in matters of police investigation or child protection.
- In the case of certain notifiable diseases such as meningitis the clinic has an obligation to report this to the Public Health Authorities.
Other Uses of Personal Health Information
- To develop the clinic’s services.
- For statistical analysis.
- To train and educate staff.
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Access to Your Medical Records
- You have a right of access to your own personal data as defined in the Data Protection Act (1988), which with some exceptions entitles individuals to a copy of information held about them. There is normally a charge for this.
- If you consider that any part of the information held on your record is inaccurate, you may apply to have this corrected. If upon examining the record the hospital finds that it is inaccurate it will be corrected. Where the hospital upon examining the record considers the record to be accurate it will not be changed but a note of your objection placed in your records.
Your Right To Complain
- If you are not happy about how your health information has been used or protected, firstly talk to a relevant member of staff and express your concerns. If you are still not happy you may make a formal complaint through the hospital’s complaints procedure.
- How to Access Rehab With Health Insurance
For those experiencing existing mental health conditions in Ireland, there are private medical insurers who can help you cover treatment. As addiction experts, we know that receiving the appropriate care and support when you have a mental health disorder is pivotal to attaining long-lasting recovery. Below, we will go through the various health insurance options to help you understand your options when it comes to seeking private residential care for substance abuse. Please note that there is no guarantee that you can be covered for all addiction problems as policies are always assessed on a case-by-case basis. Find Out More
- My Loved One Doesn’t Want Help, What Do I Do?
You can’t force someone to go to rehab. At the end of the day, it needs to be their decision because they are the ones that need to be open to turning their lives around. There are ways in which you can encourage someone to enter treatment, one of these ways is via an intervention with a trained interventionist, who facilitates an honest discussion between family members and the addict. This is something Smarmore Castle can arrange – contact us today.
- Which Drugs Does Smarmore Castle Detox From?
We can detox people from any drugs whether they are illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, ketamine; or prescription drugs such as benzodiazepines or zopiclone, oxycodone, zolpidem, klonopin, methadone, cannabis; and legal drugs such as alcohol.
- How Long Is the Treatment Programme?
Our treatment programme starts at 4 weeks and is flexible in length, giving you the opportunity to extend for a longer period if you need it.
- Do You Treat Dual Diagnosis?
All patients are reviewed by a consultant psychiatrist in the first week and we can diagnose and provide treatment for a number of co-occurring mental health conditions.
- Do I Need to Be Abstinent Before Admission?
Our medically managed detoxification with 24/7 medical cover means that we can perform complete and complex detoxes at Smarmore Castle. You don’t need to be abstinent before arrival.
- How Do I Get To Rehab Safely?
Smarmore Castle is one hour north of Dublin international airport and we can arrange a driver to collect you and bring you straight to us for free.
We can also arrange a ‘sober transport’ service with a trusted driver, from anywhere in Ireland or Northern Ireland, at an additional cost.