Privacy Policy

About this policy

Our Village Allied Health respects your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use, store and share your personal information, including health information, and how you can access it or make a complaint.

Our Village Allied Health is the trading name of Sisters Allied Health Pty Ltd ATF Speechie Sisters, ABN 38 861 084 179 ("we", "us", "our"). We provide community-based speech pathology services across the Gold Coast, Logan, Redlands and South/South East Brisbane, Queensland.

As a health service provider, we are bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and we follow Speech Pathology Australia's Code of Ethics (2020). This policy applies to information we collect through our website, by email, by phone, in person and through referrals.

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always available on our website. This policy was last updated on 21 October 2026.

What information we collect

We only collect information we need to provide our services and run our practice. Depending on how you deal with us, this may include:

• Contact details: name, phone number, email address, postal address.
• Personal details: date of birth, gender, language spoken, and details of parents, guardians, carers or nominated contacts.
• Health information: medical history, diagnoses, communication, swallowing and developmental information, assessment results, therapy notes, reports and information from other health professionals.
• Funding details: NDIS participant and plan details, plan manager or support coordinator details, Support at Home or aged care provider details, and private health fund, Medicare or Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) details where relevant.
• Billing details: invoices and payment records. We don't store full card numbers.
• Website enquiries: whatever you choose to tell us in our contact form.

Health information is "sensitive information" under the Privacy Act. We only collect it with your consent (or your parent's, guardian's or authorised representative's consent), unless the law allows otherwise.

How we collect it

Wherever possible, we collect information directly from you or your authorised representative. This includes:

• when you contact us through our website, by email, by phone or on social media
• during assessments, therapy sessions and meetings
• through our online intake and consent forms

With your consent, we may also collect information from others involved in your care, such as GPs, paediatricians, other allied health professionals, schools, childcare centres, aged care providers, support coordinators, plan managers and the NDIA.

Our website contact form. When you send an enquiry, the details you enter (name, phone, email and message) are sent to us by email through Web3Forms, a third-party form service. Please only include the information we need to get back to you. We can talk about the details of your situation once we're in touch.

Why we collect it and how we use it

We use your information to:

• respond to your enquiry and book appointments
• assess, diagnose and provide speech pathology services
• hand over your care to another speech pathologist within our practice when needed
• communicate with your care team, including sending a discharge summary to your referring doctor (let us know if you'd prefer we didn't, or if their details change)
• send appointment reminders and follow-up messages by text or email
• manage NDIS, Support at Home, private health fund, Medicare, DVA and insurance or compensation claims
• send invoices and manage accounts
• run quality assurance, audits, risk and claims management, client satisfaction surveys and staff training
• meet our legal, professional and insurance obligations

We will not use your information for other purposes, such as a mailing list or research, without your express consent. We don't share your information with commercial companies. Occasionally we may send you information about a service or product we think suits your therapy; just tell us if you'd rather we didn't.

Who we share it with

We only share your information when it's needed to provide or fund your services, and with your consent unless the law allows otherwise. This may include:

• other health professionals involved in your care, such as your GP, paediatrician, occupational therapist or psychologist
• your referring doctor, who will usually receive a discharge summary
• your parent, guardian, relatives, close friends or legal representative, unless you tell us not to
• teachers, schools, kindergartens and childcare centres
• the NDIA, plan managers and support coordinators
• aged care and Support at Home providers
• private health funds, Medicare, DVA, insurers and compensation agencies
• our professional advisers and insurers
• government agencies or others when the law requires it, for example a court order, or to lessen a serious threat to someone's life, health or safety

Service providers. We use trusted service providers to run our practice. They may hold or process information on our behalf, and some store data outside Australia:

Our client records are stored in Australia. The providers that run our website and deliver website enquiries may hold data outside Australia. They hold or deliver information on our behalf; we don't share it with anyone overseas for their own use, and we take reasonable steps to make sure they protect it in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Our website

You can browse our website without telling us who you are.

• Cookies. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, may set essential security cookies that help protect the site from bots and attacks.
• Analytics. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits and see which pages are popular. It doesn't use cookies and doesn't identify individual visitors.
• Fonts. We host our website's fonts ourselves, so loading our pages doesn't share your details with a font provider.
• Social media and other links. Our website links to our Facebook and Instagram pages and to other websites. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and we are not responsible for how they handle your information.

How we store and protect it

We keep your information mainly in electronic form, and some assessment records in hard copy. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, changes and disclosure, including:

• secure, password-protected systems, with multi-factor authentication on our practice software
• giving access only to staff who need it
• keeping hard-copy records in a locked location
• using reputable service providers with strong security practices

We keep health records for as long as required by law and professional guidelines. Generally this is 7 years after your last appointment for adults, or until a child turns 25. After that, we securely destroy or de-identify them.

If a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

Accessing and correcting your information

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, or about a child or person you're authorised to act for. Just contact us using the details below. We'll respond within 30 days. There's no charge to ask, but we may charge a reasonable fee for copying large records, and we'll tell you about any fee first.

In rare cases the law lets us refuse access, for example if giving access would pose a serious threat to someone's life, health or safety. If we refuse, we'll explain why in writing.

If you think information we hold is wrong, out of date or incomplete, please tell us and we'll correct it.

If we don't agree that a change is needed, you can give us a statement of the change you requested, and we'll keep it with your record.

Staying anonymous. You can make a general enquiry without giving your name, or using a pseudonym. To provide therapy or claim funding, however, we need to know who you are.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question about this policy or a concern about how we've handled your information, please contact us first. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and aim to resolve it within 30 days.

Privacy Officer: Leia Wilton and Stephanie Floratos
Email: info (at) ourvillagealliedhealth (dot) com (dot) au

If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC):

• Phone: 1300 363 992
• Online: lodge a privacy complaint