Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

1.1 About Bupa Aged Care

Bupa Aged Care Australia Pty Limited ABN 74 082 931 575 operates residential Care Homes across Australia.

We are committed to protecting your privacy. As part of our commitment, this Privacy Policy outlines how Bupa Aged Care manages personal information.

Bupa Aged Care is part of the Bupa Australia and New Zealand group of companies, providing a range of health and care services.

If you have received product or services from other companies within the Bupa Group, you should refer to the privacy policy of that company, available on each of their websites.

1.2 Who does this policy apply to?

This policy applies to your personal information if you:

are a current or former resident of one of our Care Homes, or are a relative or representative of a resident;
have made enquiries or contacted us to enquire about our services or products; or
have booked a home tour; or
have applied for a job with us (but you are not a current or former employee); and
we hold your personal information.

If you are unsure whether we hold your information or whether this policy applies to you, you should contact us (our contact details are at the bottom of this policy).

2. Collecting your personal information

2.1 What type of information do we collect?

The type of information we collect from you depends on our relationship with you – for example, whether you are a resident in a Bupa Aged Care home, a relative of a resident, or have simply made enquiries about our products and services.

The types of information we collect in relation to residents in Care Homes, includes:

name and date of birth;
contact details (including address, phone number(s), email);
health information (which will include care needs, records of care assessments, clinical records about care or treatment, medical history, test results);
anyone you have chosen, or who has been appointed to act on your behalf, including friends or relatives, next of kin, persons appointed as power of attorney or guardian;
billing details;
records of our interactions with you, for example emails, letters, notes and in some cases voice recordings of telephone conversations you have had with our employees;
pension or DVA details;
personal preferences (for example, in relation to activities or events); and
feedback on services.

If you are a relative or representative of a resident in a Bupa care home, we may collect:

your name;
your contact details (including address, telephone number(s) and email); and
records of your interactions with us (including correspondence like letters and email).

2.2 How we collect your information

Bupa Aged Care collects information in a number of ways, including:

if you contact us by email, phone, post or online we will keep a record of that contact; and
when you apply to become a resident in a Bupa Care Home, we will have a record of your application and your resident agreement.

We will always endeavour to collect information from you directly, however in some cases we may collect information about you from others. For example, we may collect your information from:

if someone is acting on your behalf, such as a relative, or someone has been formally appointed to act on your behalf, such a person who appointed as your power of attorney;
from your doctor, specialist, hospitals, health testing providers, or other health professionals involved in your care or treatment; and
from government departments such as the Department of Human Services (including Medicare or Centrelink details) or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

If you are providing us information about another person on their behalf, you must ensure that you have their permission to do so and you should inform that person (where practicable) that we will handle their information in accordance with this policy.

2.3 If you do not provide all of the information we have requested

If you do not provide all of the information we have reasonably requested, we may be unable to provide you with the products or services you have requested from us.

2.4 Purposes of collecting your personal information

We collect and hold your personal information in order to provide you with our services and products. For residents in a Bupa Care Home, we primarily collect and hold personal information in order to provide appropriate residential care.

Please refer to section 3 (below) for further information on how we use and disclose the personal information we collect.

3. Using and disclosing your personal information

3.1 What we may use your information for

We use your personal information to provide, manage and administer our services and products to you and to operate an efficient and sustainable business. As part of doing so, we may use your personal information to:

provide you with appropriate residential care and services;
provide clinical services to you (for example, services by nurses, doctors or other healthcare professionals);
contact you, or your relative or representative about matters relating to you, your care or the products and services we provide to you;
schedule and book activities and services;
process payments;
answer your queries and resolve complaints;
undertake quality assurance and service improvement;
carry out internal functions like administration, finance, information technology, training and audit;
undertake customer surveys, customer and market research and analysis;
monitor, price and evaluate our services and products;
conduct marketing and promotional activities;
practise effective risk management; and
comply with relevant laws and regulations;

3.2 Disclosing your personal information

Bupa Aged Care will disclose your personal information where required to provide you with our services or products. In some instances, we may disclose personal information to third parties, including to:

anyone engaged on our behalf to provide products and services, such as contractors or service providers. We require all service providers that we engage to protect the privacy of your information and to comply with any relevant privacy laws;
healthcare providers who are involved in your care, such as doctors, hospitals, allied health professionals, health testing providers, and specialists;
government and regulatory bodies including the Department of Human Services, State or Territory health departments, the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner and the Aged Care Quality Agency;
on a confidential basis, with our related companies within the Bupa Group;
any persons acting on our behalf, including professional advisers; and
where disclosure is permitted or required by law

Where we engage contractors, service providers or others to act on our behalf, Bupa Aged Care will take reasonable steps to protect the privacy of all information disclosed and requires such parties to comply with any relevant privacy laws. You have the right to ask these organisations or contractors for access to information they hold about you.

In the course of operating our business we may in some instances disclose information to recipients located outside of Australia, including in the United Kingdom.

3.3 Use of artificial intelligence (AI)

We use some AI applications and may process your personal information using AI, including for transcription services and generation of referrals.

3.4 Direct marketing

From time to time, we may contact you (by post, email, phone or SMS) to provide you with information about products and services offered by us, our related entities and our business partners that may be of interest to you. This includes information or services that can help you improve your wellbeing.

We may share your personal information on a confidential basis with our related entities and bodies corporate so that they can offer you products and services and fulfil offers to you.

When you become our customer, you consent to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes (as described in this document), unless you have contacted us to withdraw your consent. If you do not wish to receive marketing material from us, you can contact us at any time to let us know. Our contact details are at the end of this policy. When you contact us to make this request, we will action your request within 5 working days.

4. Access and correction

4.1 Accessing your personal information

You have a right to reasonable access to any information that Bupa Aged Care holds about you. To request access to your information, please contact us (our contact details are outlined below).

We may ask you to submit your request in writing and provide proof that you are legally entitled to obtain access to the information you are requesting (for example, if you are making a request on behalf of someone else).

We reserve the right to charge for providing access to certain information, as permitted by law and you will be informed of this at the time of your request. We will always endeavour to meet your request for access within a reasonable timeframe and in the manner requested by you if it is reasonable to do so.

However, in some circumstances, we may decline a request for access to information such as where we no longer hold the information, or where denying access is permitted or required by law. If we are unable to give you access to the information you have requested, we will give you written reasons for this decision when we respond to your request.

4.2 Updating or correcting your information

To enable us to provide you with the best possible service, it is important that the information we hold about you is accurate. We will take reasonable steps to ensure your personal information is accurate, complete and up-to-date at the time of collecting, using or disclosing it. In addition, if your information changes you should contact us to let us know.

If you believe any information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date, you should contact us (our contact details are below).

5. Privacy on our website

5.1 Online data collection and use

When you access the bupaagedcare.com.au website or any Bupa website, we may collect technical information about your use of the website. This may include information such as the type of browser used to access the website and the pages visited.

This information is used by Bupa to make decisions about maintaining and improving our websites and online services. This information remains anonymous and is not linked in any way to personal identification details.

5.2 Cookies and other analytics

Our websites use “cookies” and similar online behavioural tracking technologies. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by a web server when you access a website. We use cookies to collect data about which web pages are most popular, peak usage times, websites you have visited and other information that helps us make our websites more helpful and easier to use.

Cookies are designed to identify computers rather than individual users. We may, however, use them to help personalise your visit to our websites by linking the cookie on your computer to your personal information stored on our system.

You can choose if and how to accept cookies by configuring the preferences and options in your web browser. For example, you can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to reject cookies. If you decide not to accept cookies, however, you may not be able to gain access to all the content and functions of our websites.

We may also use products offered by third parties such as Google Analytics to undertake activities such as website analytics.

You can visit youronlinechoices.com.au for more information about how to opt out of certain behavioural advertising and for further information about how these tools work.