This Privacy Policy explains how HealthDirect Labs handles personal information when you read this website, use a form, subscribe to the newsletter, or become a patient of the clinic or laboratory. Health information deserves plain writing. If a sentence here is unclear, email hello@healthdirectlabs.com with the subject “Privacy” and ask us to say it another way.
The forms on this website check your entries in the browser and then show an acknowledgement. They are not connected to a clinic server. A message a person will actually read should also be sent to hello@healthdirectlabs.com until an online inbox is connected. Clinical records created during real care are handled under the stricter part of this policy, not under the rules for a public webpage.
1. Who we are
HealthDirect Labs is the clinic and laboratory named on this website. For personal information collected through the site and through care, we are the organisation that decides why the information is needed and how it is used. Coordinators, clinicians, laboratory staff, and dental staff handle information only for the tasks they are given.
This policy applies to the public pages, the appointment request, the contact form, the subscribe and unsubscribe forms, the newsletter, and the clinical record that begins once care is accepted. It does not govern emergency services you contact independently, and it does not govern a third-party sharing tool you choose to open from an icon.
2. The information we collect
Information you type into a form
Appointment requests ask for your name, email address, department, preferred clinician, visit type, preferred time, an optional note about your question, and a confirmation that we may email you about the request. Contact messages ask for name, email, subject, and message. Newsletter forms ask for name, email, and the topics you tick. Unsubscribe forms ask for the email address to remove, a reason, and an optional comment.
Please do not put passwords, full identity numbers, or detailed records of another person into a public form. A short description is enough to route a request. Richer history belongs in a visit or in a direct email once we have confirmed who you are.
Information created when you are a patient
Once a visit is accepted we may hold your name and contact email, the history you give, examination notes, laboratory requests and results, imaging references, dental charts, medicines, allergies, consent forms, quotes you accepted, messages about your care, and the name of a person you asked us to include. We collect the minimum needed for the question you brought. We do not ask for information out of curiosity.
Information from the browser
This static website does not run advertising trackers and does not set analytics cookies. Your browser may store a small local setting if you switch the colour theme, so the same theme appears on your next visit. That setting stays on your device. Server logs, if the host that publishes these pages keeps them, may include an address, a browser type, and the page requested. Those logs are used to keep the site available and to investigate abuse, not to build a marketing profile.
3. Health information is special
Symptoms, results, diagnoses, medicines, and dental records can affect your work, your family, and your sense of safety. We treat them as confidential. Staff are allowed to open a record only when they have a care, laboratory, billing, or safety reason. Curiosity is not a reason. We do not sell health information. We do not use a clinical record to fill a newsletter.
General articles in the journal are not about you. A newsletter is not a result. If a sentence in a letter reminds you of your own care, it is still general education until a clinician writes to you about your record.
4. Why we use information
We use contact details to reply to requests, confirm or move visits, send preparation advice, and answer questions. We use health information to decide whether a test is useful, to perform and interpret it, to treat or refer, to write the plan you asked for, and to keep an accurate record of what was done. We use payment details, when a visit is billed, to take the fee you accepted and to produce an itemised note if you ask for one.
We also use limited information to teach our own staff how to do the work safely, with identifiers removed whenever a story can be told without them, and to respond to a legal duty such as a mandatory notification or a court order. We do not use your record for advertising. We do not allow a sponsor to target you because of a diagnosis.
Newsletter
If you subscribe, we use your name, email, and topic choices to send the letters you picked. The legal and ethical basis is your consent. You may withdraw it on the unsubscribe page. We keep a simple record that you unsubscribed so we do not add you again by mistake.
5. Laboratory results
Results are filed in the record of the person who was tested. They are released to that person and to the clinician who requested them. If you ask us to copy another clinician, we will. We do not send results to an employer, insurer, or family member unless you ask us to or the law requires it.
A portal-style table, when one is used, is accompanied by a note or an offer of a note. Unexpected values are routed to a clinician for a faster look. Please check that the email on your record is one you actually open, because that is where preparation advice and result messages go.
6. Sharing
We share information with the colleagues inside HealthDirect Labs who are involved in your care, with a laboratory method or specialist we have asked to help and whom you have been told about, and with a person you named. Technical hosts who store email or records may process data on our instructions and may not use it for their own purposes. We require them to protect it.
We may share information when the law says we must, when it is necessary to prevent a serious threat to someone’s life, or when you tell us to. If a request from an authority arrives, we share what the request lawfully covers and no more, and we tell you when we are allowed to tell you.
Social sharing buttons send the page address to the service you click. They do not send your clinical record. If you are logged into that service, its own policy applies to the fact that you chose to share.
7. International readers
People write to us from many places. If you contact us from outside the place where the clinic keeps its records, your message will be handled where we work and where our email is hosted. Protections may differ from those in the place you are writing from. By emailing us or booking, you understand that the record will sit with the clinic. You keep any rights your local law says we cannot ask you to waive.
8. How long we keep information
Clinical records, laboratory reports, dental charts, and consent forms are kept for the period health law requires, which is often many years, because a later clinician may need them and because you may ask for them. Newsletter addresses are kept while you are subscribed and for a short suppression period after you leave so we can honour the unsubscribe. Practice form entries that never became a booking are not stored on a server by these pages. Messages you send to hello@healthdirectlabs.com are kept long enough to resolve the question and then according to whether they became part of a clinical record.
When a retention period ends, we delete or irreversibly de-identify the information. Backups roll off on their own cycle. A legal hold, such as a complaint, can pause deletion until the hold ends.
9. Security
We limit who can open records, use passwords and access controls on clinical systems, and train staff to recognise a suspicious request for a file. Email is convenient and is not a perfect vault. Do not send highly sensitive attachments to a shared inbox if a visit would be safer. Tell us promptly if you believe someone else has used your email to ask about your record.
No method of storage is immune to failure. If a breach is likely to put you at serious risk, we will tell you and, where required, tell the relevant authority, and we will say what you can do next.
10. Your choices and requests
You may ask for a copy of the personal information we hold, ask us to correct something that is wrong, ask us to delete information we are not required to keep, ask us to limit a use, or object to a use that is not necessary for your care. You may unsubscribe from the newsletter without affecting your care. You may ask for an itemised note of fees.
Write to hello@healthdirectlabs.com with the subject “Privacy request”, the email we know you by, and what you want. We may need to confirm it is you before we release a record, because releasing a file to the wrong person would be its own harm. We aim to answer during open hours within a reasonable period, and faster when the request is about a result you need for ongoing care.
If you are unhappy with our reply, you may contact the health privacy or consumer authority that oversees the clinic. We will tell you which office that is when you ask. Asking us first gives us a chance to fix the problem.
11. Children
We do not invite children to create newsletter accounts or to send clinical details through public forms. A parent or legal guardian may write about a child’s care and should identify themselves. The child’s record is kept under the same confidentiality rules, with the added care that access by a parent can sometimes be limited when the law says a young person’s privacy should prevail. Those situations are handled clinician by clinician, not by a website checkbox.
12. Cookies and local settings
The colour theme control stores a preference called a local setting in your browser so the pages stay light or dark. You can clear it in your browser settings. We do not use that setting to identify you. If we later add a cookie that is not strictly needed for the page to function, we will describe it here before we turn it on and, where the law requires, ask you first.
13. Links
Articles may mention general health ideas and the footer can open a sharing service. Once you leave our pages, this policy no longer applies. Read the other service’s policy before you send it any information about your health.
14. Changes to this policy
We will update this page when our practices change. The date at the bottom will move with the text. A material change in how we use clinical information will also be mentioned by email to people who are current patients, where we have a working address, or at the next visit. Continued use of the public forms after an update applies to information you send after that date. Care already given remains under the policy that was in place, plus any stronger protection the law later requires.
15. How to reach us
Privacy questions, access requests, and correction requests go to hello@healthdirectlabs.com. Please do not include an emergency. Please do not send a full medical history in the first privacy email. Tell us the request, and we will explain the safest way to share anything further.
Open hours for the inbox are Monday to Saturday, 8:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday 9:00 am to 1:00 pm for urgent review. A privacy request is usually handled on the next open day we can confirm identity, not during the Sunday urgent window unless it is tied to care happening that day.
Last updated: 3 October 2026.