PRIVACY NOTICE FOR PATIENTS, THEIR FAMILIES, FRIENDS AND HEALTH ADVISERS
(1) Your Personal Data
Harley Street Nurses Ltd is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.
This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and use personal data about you during and after your care, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
Who does this Notice apply to?
This Privacy Notice applies to:
- current and former clients;
- current and former patients;
- families and friends of patients;
- Caregivers and
- Health Advisers (such as GPs) of patients.
Our obligations under UK GDPR
We will comply with the UK GDPR which says that the personal data we hold about you must be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely.
What key information do we collect about you?
We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
- Personal contact details such as name, title, postal addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
- Date of birth.
- Gender.
- Marital status and dependants.
- Next of kin and emergency contact information.
- Power of Attorney
- Relationship to the Patient
- GP Practice details
- National Insurance number.
- National Health Service Number.
- Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
- Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information.
- Admission date.
- Discharge / Leaving date and your reason for leaving.
- Location of care provided.
- Accidents and Incident information
- CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipe card records.
- Copy of driving licence.
- Photographs.
- Information about criminal convictions and offences.
- Your IP address
- Compliments, Complaints
- Responses to Patient Questionnaires
We may also collect, store and use the following more sensitive types of personal information:
- Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
- Information about your health, such as your symptoms, medical condition(s), medication, health and sickness records, Occupation health reports, GP records, Hospital records.
- Genetic information and biometric data.
How is your personal information collected?
We collect personal information about you when you enquire about our care services, use our website, forms and become a patient under our case either directly from you or through i.e. GPs, Carers
How we will use information about you
We will only use your personal information in accordance with the law. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you
- Where we need to provide you care.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
- In order to identify and deal with your requests.
- Where we need to contact medical professionals, family and/or caregivers about you.
- Where we need to provide preventive or occupational medicine
- Where it is necessary for legitimate interests namely to provide safe care to patients and protect the welfare of patients and our workers.
- Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
- Where it is needed in the public interest [or for official purposes].
How do we use sensitive personal information?
Sensitive personal information, such as information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or trade union membership, require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
- In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
- Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment.
- Where it is needed in the public interest.
- Where it is necessary to protect you or another person from harm.
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.
When will we use your sensitive personal information?
The situations in which we will process your particularly sensitive personal information are as above under the personal information and as listed below.
- to provide you with information or services you have requested and to process payments and refunds.
- to ensure an accurate care record is kept which would include information about your health and well-being including illnesses, medical appointments and treatments. It will also contain details of your attorney, deputies, your close family and next of kin. We will share these with medical and allied health professionals who have a legal and legitimate need to use the information to support the care provided to you.
- to provide necessary administrative and managerial support.
- to review the performance of our care services as part of our continuing work to improve our services and meet the needs of our patients.
- to share with NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), local and health authorities, medical professionals and regulators regarding patient’s health and care including admission details, care records and medical records.
- to share with Public Health England and the Department of Social Care
- to share with your consultant, clinic or hospital
Situations in which we will use your personal information and sensitive personal information without your consent
We are required from time to time to provide specific information about you without you or your representative’s consent. This may include:
- Reporting health or safety issues including infectious diseases
- Where there is a legal or statutory requirement, court order or public authority instructs us to do so
- Supporting police investigations, professional conduct hearings and safeguarding investigations in the public interest.
In exceptional circumstances, we may be required to share information without your or your representative’s consent. Circumstances may include:
- Where a serious crime or fraud has been committed.
- If there is a serious risk to the public, resident or employees.
- Where there is a need to protect children or vulnerable adults who are not able to decide if their personal data should be shared
What if you fail to provide your personal data?
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you or provide you with the care required, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of you or our workers).
What can we do with information about criminal convictions?
We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our data protection policy.
We envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.
We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:
- To consider whether what safeguards are required in respect to your care, other patients and our workers.
- To consider whether you can be permitted entry to certain premises.
We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations as set out by the Care Quality Commission the General Medical Council and Nursing & Midwifery Council.
Automated decision-making
Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:
- Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
- Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
- In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.
We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing if this position changes.
Data sharing
We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.
We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer patient care or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. In this situation we will, so far as possible, share anonymised data with the other parties before the transaction completes. Once the transaction is completed, we will share your personal data with the other parties if and to the extent required under the terms of the transaction.
We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. This may include making disclosures to medical and allied health professionals who have a legal and legitimate need to use the information to support the care provided to you.
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
Do we transfer your personal information outside the UK?
We do not currently transfer the personal information collected outside the UK.
If we do need to transfer your personal information outside the UK, you can expect to be notified in advance and a similar degree of protection as required under UK GDPR in respect of your personal information will be afforded.
(2) Data security
We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.
Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
(3) Data retention
How long will we use your information?
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
(4) Your rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
- Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
- Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
- Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
- Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
- Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact our Data Privacy Manager in writing.
Right to withdraw consent
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Data Privacy Manager. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
(5) Our Data Privacy Manager
We have appointed a Data Privacy Manager to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Data Privacy Manager at info@harleystreetnurses.com.
(6) Changes to this privacy notice
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact us at info@harleystreetnurses.com.