Mary Stevens Hospice Patient & Carers Privacy Notice (as at 23 Nov 21)
Mary Stevens Hospice is committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information you share with us.
How Do We Use Your Information?
As a patient we will need to collect information about you, your condition and others involved in your care in order for us to be able provide the best possible care to you.
If you are referred to one of our clinical services we will collect data from you and may also receive and share it where necessary with other healthcare providers. Our current lawful basis for collecting personal information is contained within Articles 6 and 9 of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
In order to provide complete care we may also collect some information about family members and carers. Where Next of Kin or family details are provided within clinical services, this information will not be passed to Fundraising or any other internal department without explicit consent. However, information is passed onto our Bereavement Support Team when a patient dies to enable an offer of Bereavement Support to be made directly to a patient’s loved ones.
If you stay on or visit our premises, such as our Inpatient Unit, we may collect your image on CCTV. We may take photographic images of you for medical purposes, with your prior consent, such as in the case of pressure ulcers, to assist in your care. We also receive data about our patients and their families and carers from other healthcare providers.
Why do we process your information?
Your information is used for direct care purposes:
- To refer you to and to assess suitability of our services for you and your support network
- To provide you and the people that care for you with our care and support services
- To ensure that we record the care provided to you; this helps your direct care team stay up to date with the care that has been provided to you
We may also use your information for purposes that are not related to your direct care:
- To investigate queries, complaints or legal claims
- To manage and audit our services
- To provide important statistical information to commissioners and partners for funding and management purposes
- For research and planning purposes. Your personal information will not automatically be used for this purpose if you have signed up to the National Data Opt-Out Scheme (Click here for the MSH Statement on this scheme), but you may be asked to give specific consent for a specified research project. For more information, relating to the National Data Opt Out, please click the following link: https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/
How your information is stored
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we process.
Personal data on our computer system is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and volunteers who need to access your personal data as an essential part of their role. All access is tracked through individual login credentials. We take the security of personal data seriously. We employ security technology, including firewalls, and encryption to safeguard personal data and have procedures in place to ensure that our paper, computer systems and databases are protected against unauthorised disclosure, use, loss and damage.
What kind of information we hold about you.
- Identity details – name, date of birth, NHS Number
- Contact details – address, telephone, email address
- ‘Next of kin’ – the contact details of a close relative or friend
- Details of any in-patient spells or clinic appointments
- Details of any diagnosis and treatment given
- Information about any allergies and health conditions
- Medical history
How we might contact you
By providing the Hospice with their contact details, patients are agreeing that the Hospice may use those channels to communicate with them about their healthcare. We will always honour your contact preferences which may be by letter, telephone, text message or e-mail.
How long we keep your information
We will not keep your information longer than is necessary. It is kept in line with national guidelines or requirements according to the purpose for which it is collected.
Whether we disclose this information to anyone else
- We have never and will never sell or share your data with any other company or charity for marketing purposes.
- We will NOT share your data with our fundraising teams or trading.
- We may however share your data with other healthcare professionals in the course of any treatment we provide for you. We may also share your data with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at their request during their unannounced inspections.
We may also share your information with other organisations when we are required to do so by law, for example:
- If we are sent a request from the Police under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
- If we receive a formal order from a court acting in their judiciary capacity
- If there is a public health need such as preventing the spread of infectious diseases
- If there is a safeguarding need
If you are someone named by the patient as a carer/contact
If a patient has named you as the person they would like us to contact about their care, we would store your name, address, and phone numbers, for the purpose of contacting you about the patient’s care. If you consented, we would also use your information so that we can keep you informed about events for carers, and ways that you could support the work of the hospice.
Your Rights
You have a number of rights, in respect of your personal data. These include:
- The right to receive a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. The same right applies to any other person whose personal data you provide to us. We will require proof of identity and proof of authority if the request comes from someone other than the person whose data we are asked to provide. This will ensure we only provide information to the correct person. We normally expect to respond to requests within 28 days of receiving them.
- The right to withdraw consent to other processing. Where the only legal basis for our processing your personal data is that we have your consent to do so, you may withdraw your consent to that processing at any time and we will have to stop processing your personal data.
- If you consider any of your personal data is inaccurate, you can contact us to correct it for you.
- Where we have no lawful basis for holding onto your personal data you are entitled to require us to delete it.
Further Information
If you wish to know more, have any queries about this Notice or wish for any further information about how we process your data, please speak to any of the doctors or clinical staff or contact us at:
Privacy Officer
Mary Stevens Hospice
221 Hagley Road
Oldswinford
Stourbridge
West Midlands
DY8 2JR
Call: 01384 443010
Email: Privacy.Officer@marystevenshospice.co.uk
If you have any concerns or complaints about how we are handling your data please do not hesitate to get in touch.
If you believe that Mary Stevens Hospice Group has not complied with your data protection rights, you can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. (www.ico.org.uk).