OVERVIEW

We care about your personal data and it is important that you know how we use it and how we keep it safe. This Privacy Notice covers how, when and why we use your information. This Privacy Notice also explains the choices you can make about the way in which we use your information and how you have the right to change your mind at any time.

This Privacy Notice is not exhaustive and we are always happy to provide any additional information or explanations where needed. Please contact our Data Protection Officer either by email, telephone or in writing using these contact details:

Data Protection Officer, Alice House Hospice, Alice House, Wells Avenue, Hartlepool, TS24 9DA. Telephone: 01429 855555. Email: enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk

This Privacy Notice applies to all information held by Alice House Hospice relating to individuals, whether you are a patient, service user, member of staff, volunteer, supporter or contractor.

---

REVIEWS OF AND CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

We keep our Privacy Notice under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page. This Privacy Notice was last updated on 01 July 2020.

---

INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOLD ABOUT YOU

The information we collect will depend entirely on our relationship with you but we will only use the minimum amount of information necessary for the purpose. Sometimes we will use information that does not identify you i.e. statistics / anonymised reports.

As clinical, fundraising and internal human resources information is collected for entirely different purposes, we do not pass information between the different systems in order to protect your confidentiality unless you have given consent for us to do so. The only exception to this is when a patient dies we will inform fundraising to ensure that any supporters who have died while receiving care with Alice House Hospice are not contacted inappropriately causing distress to the family.

If You Are a Patient

If you are 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 to provide the best possible care to you. Where Next of Kin or family details are provided within clinical services, this information will not be passed to fundraising without consent. However, information is passed onto our Counselling & Support Service when a patient dies to enable an offer of Counselling Support to be made directly to a patient’s loved ones.

If You Are an Applicant, Member of Staff or Volunteer 

We will collect contact information about you as well as work history and we will also take information in order to perform a DBS check if appropriate. If you are a volunteer or staff member and would like further clarification on the data we collect and how we use it please contact our Senior Manager Corporate Services on 01429 855555 or email enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk

If You Are a Donor, Supporter or Customer 

Patients, staff and volunteers can also be donors, supporters, customers or even patients.  If you are a donor, supporter and/or customer the information we will collect will be that which we require to process your donation, purchase, gift aid donation or to keep you safe during an event. We collect name, contact details and payment details where appropriate.

Often people who interact with Alice House Hospice have more than one status within the organisation meaning your data may have been collected a number of times for different purposes by different departments. We do not share your data internally for marketing purposes unless you have given us permission to do so.

What Information We May Collect Via Our Website

• Form submissions, for example registering interest for events, feedback forms and information requests.
• Subscribing to receive communications from Alice House Hospice such as newsletters, updates, fundraising, events, Hospice Lottery.
• Details of your visits to our site, including which pages you visit and what you do.
• Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of your orders.

Legal Obligations to Collect and Use Information

In the circumstances where we are required to use personal identifiable data we will only do this if:

• The information is necessary for your direct healthcare.
• We have received written consent from you to use your information for a specific purpose e.g. employment, volunteering, fundraising, lottery membership etc.
• There is an overriding public interest in using the information e.g. in order to safeguard an individual or to prevent a serious crime.
• There is a legal requirement that will allow us to use or provide information e.g. a formal Court Order or subpoena.
• We have permission to do so from the Secretary of State for Health to use certain confidential patient identifiable information when it is necessary for our work.
• Emergency Planning reasons such as protecting the health and safety of others. Typically these relate to severe weather, outbreaks of diseases e.g. seasonal flu, and major transport incidents.

Emails and Texts

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, we cannot send marketing information to you via text or email without your specific consent to use these channels, even if you have supplied your email address or mobile number to us in the past.

Mail and Telephone Marketing

It is not a legal requirement that we obtain explicit consent to contact you with marketing information via traditional mail or over the telephone, if you have supplied us with your contact details and assuming we are contacting you about something which is relevant to how you have contacted us or supported us in the past. However you can opt out of receiving marketing from us via these channels at any time by emailing enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk or telephoning 01429 855555.

---

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We shall process the data you supply in order that we can assist you and respond appropriately. We will not share or sell your data for marketing purposes outside of Alice House Hospice.

This website explains how to subscribe to Alice House Hospice communications through our ‘Stay in Touch with Alice House Hospice’ form.

You can unsubscribe at any time through our ‘Unsubscribe’ form.

You can update your preferences at any time through our ‘Update Your Preferences’ form.

Alternatively you can contact us to make any changes at enquires@alicehousehospice.co.uk or telephone 01429 855555.

If you are a patient we will discuss consent to share with you when you first start using our services. This will include sharing information with other professionals involved in your care, such as your GP, Hospital Consultant or District Nurse. If at any point you change your mind please inform a member of staff or email enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk and we will ensure your consent to share status is updated.

As a partner in the Great North Care Record (GNCR), we need to request and share your information from and with other relevant parties who are part of your care and ongoing support network.
Full details of the member organisations of the GNCR, what data may be viewed across the GNCR network, and what are the benefits to being part of the GNCR are available from the GNCR website.

If you have any objection to being part of the GNCR you can contact the GNCR helpline on 0344 811 9587 and speak to a member of our team. In order to log and process your objection we are required to collect some basic demographic information about you. We will always seek to comply with your request, but in some circumstances we may have to use your information to comply with our other legal duties.

Third Parties

Your information will not be sent outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) or to any country where the laws do not protect your privacy to the same extent as the law in the UK. We will never sell any information about you. We may need to share your information with third parties in order to provide you with our services or to help us to raise funds for our charity, these third parties include:

• The National Health Service (NHS).
• Healthcare professionals (such as doctors, consultants and nurses).
• Pharmacists and other third-party organisations involved in your care.
• Any other person involved in providing services relating to your direct general healthcare, including mental health professionals, other charities or non-NHS health care professionals.
• Local authorities, Commissioners, Clinical Commissioning Groups and the Care Quality Commission.
• Organisations such as the Police, solicitors, courts and insurance companies for the purposes of complying with the law.
• Services providers who host our website and software systems.
• Payment card providers who handle transactions on our behalf (for donors).
• Third-party marketing organisations we work with when you sign-up to our marketing as a charity.
• SystmOne: Alice House hospice uses an electronic system called SystmOne to record and share patient information. This system allows the sharing of electronic records across different healthcare services such as GPs, community teams, hospital services and social care. SystmOne is facilitated by NHS England and your records may be shared with other professionals and organisations involved in your direct healthcare.
• Where we do share your information with third parties, Alice House Hospice ensures that the highest levels of data protection are in place in accordance with the law. Third parties with whom we share data are only permitted to process this data for the specified purposes we stipulate with them via agreements and contracts.

---

OUR COMMITMENT TO DATA PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY ISSUES

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only process personal confidential data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the General Data Protection Regulation (2018), the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality and the Human Rights Act 1998. The various laws and rules about using and sharing confidential information, with which Alice House Hospice will comply, are available in “A guide to confidentiality in health and social care” which is published on the NHS Digital website. The Hospice also has a local policy on Confidentiality which can be made available on request.

Alice House Hospice is a Data Controller and under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation (2018) we are legally responsible for ensuring that all personal confidential data that we collect and use i.e. hold, obtain, record, use or share about you is done in compliance with this legislation.

All data controllers must notify the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of all personal information processing activities. Our ICO Data Protection Register number is Z7447764 and our entry can be found in the Data Protection Register on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Everyone working for Alice House Hospice has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential. The NHS Care Record Guarantee and NHS Constitution provide a commitment that all NHS organisations and those providing care on behalf of the NHS will use records about you in ways that respect your rights and promote your health and wellbeing.

All identifiable information that we hold about you will be held securely and confidentially. We use administrative and technical controls to do this. We use strict controls to ensure that only authorised staff are able to see information that identifies you. Only a limited number of authorised staff have access to information that identifies you where it is appropriate to their role and is strictly on a need-to-know basis. All health and social care organisations are required to provide annual evidence of compliance with applicable laws, regulations and standards through the Data Security & Protection Toolkit, which is an online self-assessment tool that allows organisations to measure their performance against the National Data Guardian’s 10 data security standards. All organisations that have access to NHS patient data and systems must use this toolkit to provide assurance that they are practising good data security and that personal information is handled correctly. The Hospice’s current level of compliance has been published on the toolkit as ‘standards met’ providing assurance to you of how we protect your information.

All of our staff and volunteers receive appropriate and on-going training to ensure they are aware of their personal responsibilities and have contractual obligations to uphold confidentiality, enforceable through disciplinary procedures. All staff are trained to ensure they understand how to recognise and report an incident ensuring that the organisation’s procedure for investigating, managing and learning lessons from incidents.

We will only retain information in accordance with the schedules set out in the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016. The Hospice’s Records Management Policy includes guidance around the secure destruction of information in line with the Code of Practice.

Confidentiality Advice and Support

The Hospice has a Caldicott Guardian who is a senior person responsible for protecting the confidentiality of service user information and enabling appropriate and lawful information-sharing. Further information about the role of the Caldicott Guardian is available on request by emailing enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk or telephoning 01429 855555.

---

ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION AND CORRECTION

You have certain legal rights:

• Right of Access (tell you if we have your data; give you a copy of your data).
• Right to Rectify (correct your data).
• Right of Erasure (delete your data).
• Right to Restrict Processing (stop processing your data but not delete).
• Right of Portability (give you your data in common, machine readable format).
• Right to Object (to direct marketing, to processing for scientific / historical research or statistics, to processing based on legitimate interests or public interest).

You have the right to privacy and to expect Alice House Hospice to keep your information confidential and secure.

If we do hold identifiable information about you and you have any queries about the information we hold please contact the Data Protection Officer using the details below:

Data Protection Officer, Alice House Hospice, Alice House, Wells Avenue, Hartlepool, TS24 9DA. Telephone: 01429 855555. Email: enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk

---

COMPLAINTS

Alice House Hospice aims to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring concerns to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures. Contact details for complaints regarding the processing of information should be directed to:

Data Protection Officer, Alice House Hospice, Alice House, Wells Avenue, Hartlepool, TS24 9DA. Telephone: 01429 855555. Email: enquiries@alicehousehospice.co.uk

You can also raise a concern directly with the ICO although our aim is to resolve your complaint swiftly ourselves in the first instance.

---

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © Alice House Hospice, all rights reserved. Unless otherwise stated, the copyright of all the information, materials, images, logos, downloadable documents and video content on this website belongs to Alice House Hospice. Information may not be published in any other format without the express written permission of the Hospice.

---

COOKIES

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a simple text file of letters and numbers that is stored on to your computer or mobile device by a website’s server when you access certain websites. Only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers.

What does a cookie do?

A cookie is like a door key – cookies unlock a computer’s memory and allow websites to recognise users when they return to that particular site. Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you. Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier. Cookies have limited functionality and cannot browse or scan your computer or dig for information. Users always have the option of accepting or denying cookies.

How does Alice House Hospice use cookies?

Information received via web cookies is used to enhance your experience of our site and microsites and ascertain whether the website is functioning correctly

Analytical cookies

The cookies we use are predominantly ‘analytical’ cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our web site when they’re using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily. This website uses Google Analytics* cookies. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting to refuse cookies, our website will deliver the cookie as soon as you visit the website. Google Analytics is collected via a JavaScript tag in the pages of our site. Google Analytics uses a Persistent Cookies (remains on your computer unless it expires or your cookie cache is cleared) and some session cookies (used to calculate visit information such as visit length and where a visitor arrived from). We have enabled Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting so we better understand our demographics and our website users’ interests. More information on Google Analytics can be found on Google’s support website

Functional cookies

Alice House Hospice uses cookies for the checkout process when making a purchase in our shop, registering for an event or donation.

What to do if you don’t want Cookies to be set?

Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their computer or mobile device a bit intrusive, particularly when this information is stored and used by a third party without them knowing. The cookies Alice House Hospice use are harmless and we do not use them for advertising that has been targeted to your interests. However, if you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies, or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that you might lose some functions of the Hospice’s website. You can control which types of cookies you allow by turning cookies on or off in your web browser’s settings. You can also delete cookies by clearing your browser’s cookie cache (history). To find out how to turn cookies on and off in your browser, click on the relevant browser link below.

To find out how to turn cookies on and off in your browser, click on the relevant browser link below.
• Google Chrome*
• Firefox*
• Safari*
• Internet Explorer*
• Safari IOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)*
• Google Android*