Who we are
El Rapha Cares Pty Ltd is a nurse-led care provider delivering DVA community nursing, NDIS supports and home care for older adults across Melbourne. Our postal address is PO Box 5305, Cranbourne VIC 3977.
We handle personal and health information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and its Australian Privacy Principles, and under the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic).
If you have any question about this policy, email admin@elraphacares.com.au or write to us at that address, and ask for the person handling privacy.
What we collect
From this website, only what you type into one of our forms: your contact details, enough about the person you are enquiring for that we can tell whether we can help, and whatever you choose to tell us.
Our referral form deliberately asks for very little about the person being referred — a first name, a suburb and a postcode, and nothing at all about their health. The rest we would rather discuss with you, and with them, by phone. Feedback can be left without a name or an email address at all.
When we go on to provide care we collect a great deal more, including health information, care and medication needs, your Medicare, DVA or NDIS details, and records of the support we deliver. That is collected from you directly, in conversation and on paper, not through this website.
How we collect it
Almost always from you, directly.
The exception is a referral, where somebody else may give us a person's first name and suburb before we have met them. When that happens we ask the referrer to confirm they have that person's permission, and our first step is to speak with the person themselves. If they would rather we did not hold their details, we delete them.
We may also receive information about you from a GP, hospital discharge planner, support coordinator, family member or the DVA or NDIA, where they are arranging care on your behalf.
Why we collect it
To answer your enquiry, to assess whether we can help, to plan and deliver care safely, to bill the DVA, the NDIA or you, to meet our obligations to funders and regulators, and to look into feedback and complaints.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for marketing.
You do not have to give us any of it. But if you leave out something we genuinely need, we may not be able to arrange care — and we will tell you plainly when that is the case.
Who we share it with
With your consent, and with the people involved in your care: our nurses and support workers, and where relevant your GP, treating clinicians, allied health professionals, hospital or pharmacy.
With the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the National Disability Insurance Agency or a plan manager, where they fund your supports and need the information to do so.
With the providers of the software we run our business on — our email, our client records system and our accounting system — who hold information on our behalf and may not use it for anything else.
And where the law requires or permits it, including where somebody is at risk of serious harm.
We do not share your information with anyone else without asking you first.
How we store it
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, using a combination of physical, electronic and procedural measures. Records are held in business systems that require a login, access is limited to the staff who need it for their role, and paper records are kept secured and destroyed once we no longer need them.
No system is completely secure, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach occurs that is likely to cause you serious harm, we are required to tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, and we will.
Sending information overseas
We do not disclose your personal information to overseas recipients.
Some of the everyday software we use, such as email, is provided by international companies whose systems may route or store data outside Australia. Those providers act for us and cannot use your information for their own purposes. If that ever changes, we will update this policy and name the countries involved.
Our website
We measure how the site is used — pages viewed, the general area a visit came from, and the kind of device and browser used — so we can see what people find useful.
The tool we use does this without cookies and without building a profile of you. It does not identify you, it cannot follow you to other websites, and we do not run advertising trackers of any kind.
How long we keep it
Enquiries and referrals that do not lead to care are deleted once it is clear we will not be working together.
Health records are a different matter. Australian health privacy law requires providers to keep an adult's health record for at least seven years from the last occasion we provided a service, and for a person under 18, until they turn 25. We keep to those periods and dispose of records securely afterwards.
Dealing with us anonymously
You can ask us general questions, and give us feedback, without telling us who you are. Our feedback form does not require a name or an email address, and you are welcome to ring us without giving your name.
The limits are practical rather than legal. If you want a reply, we need somewhere to send it. And once we are actually providing care, we have to know who you are — we cannot deliver nursing to, or claim funding for, an anonymous person.
Seeing what we hold, and correcting it
You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you at any time. Email admin@elraphacares.com.au, write to us at PO Box 5305, Cranbourne VIC 3977, or ask any of our staff and we will pass it on. We will ask you to confirm who you are first.
We will respond as quickly as we reasonably can. For health records, the law sets an outer limit of 45 days from when we receive your request.
We may charge a fee for giving you access, to cover our reasonable costs. Those amounts are capped by regulation, and we will tell you what the charge will be before we start any work. Correcting your information is always free.
If something we hold is wrong, out of date or incomplete, tell us and we will correct it. There are narrow situations where the law allows us to refuse access or a correction — for example where giving it would seriously threaten someone's life or health, or reveal private information about another person. If we refuse, we will tell you why in writing, and tell you how to challenge that decision.
Making a complaint
If you think we have mishandled your information, please tell us — email admin@elraphacares.com.au marked for the attention of the owner, or write to the owner at PO Box 5305, Cranbourne VIC 3977. Complaints come to the owner directly, not to the staff they may be about. We will look into it and write back to you.
You do not need our permission to take it further, and you do not have to come to us at all. If we have not resolved things within 30 days, or you are unhappy with our answer, or you would simply rather raise it elsewhere, you can go to a regulator:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner — 1300 363 992, or oaic.gov.au — for privacy complaints under the Privacy Act.
Health Complaints Commissioner (Victoria) — 1300 582 113, or hcc.vic.gov.au — for complaints about health information under the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic).
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission — 1800 035 544, or ndiscommission.gov.au — for complaints about NDIS supports and worker conduct.
Complaining will never affect the care you receive.
Changes to this policy
We review this policy at least once a year, and whenever we change the systems we use or the way we handle information. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated.