Privacy policy

1. Introduction

Care South offers care services, including personal care, to people in their own homes and accommodation for people who require nursing or personal care across the south of England. Care South is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide care services.

This is Care South’s (hereafter referred to as “us”, “we”, or “our”) Privacy Policy. As part of the services we offer, we are required to process personal data about our staff, our service users and, in some instances, the friends or relatives of our service users and staff. “Processing” can mean collecting, recording, organising, storing, sharing or destroying data.

We are committed to being transparent about why we need your personal data and what we do with it. This information is set out in this Privacy Policy. It also explains your rights when it comes to your 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 (such as paying you or providing a service), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

National Data Opt-Out

At this time, we do not share any data for planning or research purposes for which the national data opt-out would apply. We review all of the confidential patient information we process on an annual basis to see if this is used for research and planning purposes. If it is, then individuals can decide to stop their information being shared for this purpose. You can find out more information at https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/

If you have any concerns or questions please contact our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@care-south.co.uk.

2. Service users (residents and clients)

2.1 What data do we have?

So that we can provide a safe and professional service, we need to keep certain records about you. We may process the following types of data:

  • Your basic details and contact information e.g. your name, address, date of birth and next of kin;
  • Your financial details e.g. details of how you pay us for your care or your funding arrangements.

We also record the following data which is classified as “special category”:

  • Health and social care data about you, which might include both your physical and mental health data.
  • We may also record data about your racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religious or philosophical beliefs.

2.2 Why do we have this data?

We need this data so that we can provide high-quality care and support. By law, we need to have a lawful basis for processing your personal data.

We process your data because:

  • We have a legal obligation to do so – generally under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 or the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

We process your special category data because:

  • It is necessary due to social security and social protection law (generally this would be in safeguarding instances);
  • It is necessary for us to provide and manage social care services;
  • We are required to provide data to our regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), as part of our public interest obligations.

We may also process your data with your consent. If we need to ask for your permission, we will offer you a clear choice and ask that you confirm to us that you consent. We will also explain clearly to you what we need the data for and how you can withdraw your consent at any time.

2.3 Where do we process your data?

So that we can provide you with high quality care and support we need specific data. This is collected from or shared with:

  • You or your legal representative(s);
  • Third parties.

We may do this face to face, via phone, email, our website, post, application forms, or via apps.

Third parties are organisations we might lawfully share your data with. These include:

  • Other parts of the health and care system such as local hospitals, the GP, the pharmacy, social workers, clinical commissioning groups, and other health and care professionals;
  • Our electronic care records and medication management providers;
  • The Local Authority;
  • Your family or friends – with your permission;
  • Organisations we have a legal obligation to share information with e.g. for safeguarding, the CQC;
  • The police or other law enforcement agencies if we have to by law or court order.

3. Staff

3.1 What data do we have?

So that we can provide a safe and professional service, we need to keep certain records about you. We may record the following types of data:

  • Your basic details and contact information e.g. your name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and next of kin;
  • Your financial details e.g. details so that we can pay you, insurance, pension and tax details;
  • Your training records.

We also record the following data which is classified as “special category”:

  • Health and social care data about you, which might include both your physical and mental health data – we will only collect this if it is necessary for us to know as your employer, e.g. fit notes or in order for you to claim statutory maternity/paternity pay;
  • We may also, with your permission, record data about your race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion.

As part of your application you may – depending on your job role – be required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check (Criminal Record Check). We do not keep this data once we’ve seen it.

3.2 Why do we have this data?

We require this data so that we can contact you, pay you and make sure you receive the training and support you need to perform your job. By law, we need to have a lawful basis for processing your personal data.

We process your data because:

  • We have a legal obligation under UK employment law;
  • We are required to do so in our performance of a public task;
  • We have a legitimate interest in processing your data – for example, we provide data about your training to Skills for Care’s National Minimum Data Set, this allows Skills for Care to produce reports about workforce planning.
  • We are required to provide data to our regulator, the CQC, as part of our public interest obligations.

We process your special category data because:

  • It is necessary for us to process requests for sick pay, maternity pay or other statutory pay.

If we request your criminal records data it is because we have a legal obligation to do this due to the type of work you do. This is set out in the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. We do not keep a record of your criminal records information (if any).

We may also process your data with your consent. If we need to ask for your permission, we will offer you a clear choice and ask that you confirm to us that you. We will also explain clearly to you what we need the data for and how you can withdraw your consent.

3.3 Where do we process your data?

As your employer we need specific data. This is collected from or shared with:

  • You or your legal representative(s);
  • Third parties.

We may do this face to face, via phone, email, our website, post, application forms, or via apps.

Third parties are organisations we have a legal reason to share your data with. These include:

  • Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC);
  • Our pension and healthcare schemes;
  • Our external payroll provider;
  • Our rostering system providers;
  • Organisations we have a legal obligation to share information with e.g. for safeguarding, the CQC;
  • The police or other law enforcement agencies if we have to by law or court order;
  • The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) which is operated through Access (our HR information system).

4. Friends/Relatives

4.1 What data do we have?

As part of our work providing high-quality care and support, it might be necessary that we hold the following information on you:

  • Your basic details and contact information e.g. your name and address.

4.2 Why do we have this data?

By law, we need to have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. We process your data because we have a legitimate business interest in holding next of kin and lasting power of attorney information about the individuals who use our service and keeping emergency contact details for our staff.

We may also process your data with your consent. If we need to ask for your permission, we will offer you a clear choice and ask that you confirm to us that you consent. We will also explain clearly to you what we need the data for and how you can withdraw your consent.

4.3 Where do we process your data?

So that we can provide high quality care and support we need specific data. This is collected from or shared with:

  • You or your legal representative(s);
  • Third parties

We may do this face to face, via phone, email, our website, post, application forms, or via apps

Third parties are organisations we have a legal reason to share your data with. These may include:

  • Other parts of the health and care system such as local hospitals, the GP, the pharmacy, social workers, and other health and care professionals;
  • The Local Authority;
  • The police or other law enforcement agencies if we have to by law or court order.

5. Our website

5.1

In order to provide you with the best experience while using our website, we process some data about you. This section of our Privacy Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it and how we keep it secure. Care South takes its website users’ privacy very seriously and adheres to its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. Care South takes all reasonable care to comply at all times with the Regulation and all relevant UK and EU laws.

This Privacy Policy is subject to change without prior notice. Care South encourages its website users to review this policy periodically. By using Care South’s website you agree to the terms of this policy in effect at that time.

5.2 Information Care South collects

Care South collects both personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information through our website in order to learn more about how its website users use our website and to provide users with information about Care South, its business and services. Website users are not obliged to provide Care South with personal information to use the website however, Care South may obtain personal data about you, such as your name, email address, home address and telephone number when you volunteer it during the completion of the enquiry form, to apply for a job (see below) with Care South or to sign up to receive our newsletter. If you volunteer such information you will be consenting to our processing it for the purpose supplied.

Care South may monitor your usage of our website and uses personal information to administer and expand its business activities, providing customer service and making available other products and services to Care South’s customer and prospective customers. Care South may use the information to notify you about important changes to the website, new services and special updates which we think you will find valuable.

Care South may collect aggregate information from all website users. The aggregate data is used to customise Care South’s web content to deliver a better experience for its users and will in no way personally identify you.

5.3 Recruitment

As part of the recruitment process, Care south collects and processes personal data on job applicants, gained either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. This can include:

  • your name, address and contact details, including your email address and telephone number;
  • details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
  • information from interviews and phone-screening you may have;
  • information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
  • whether or not you have a disability;
  • information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
  • Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief.

Such data may be contained in CVs, application forms, passport or other identity documents or collected through interview or other forms of assessment. Care South will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, credit reference agencies, and information from employment background check providers e.g. Disclosure Barring Service providers (Criminal Records Check).

Processing data from job applicants allows the organisation to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and to decide to whom to offer a job. In some cases, Care South needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations e.g. eligibility to work in the U.K. Care South processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who may have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations in relation to employment. Where we process other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this if for equal opportunities monitoring purposes. Our processing of these types of data will be carried out to ensure you or we can meet our obligations or exercise our rights under law related to employment or (only where applicable) to enable us to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of recruitment e.g. members of the HR Department and recruiting team / managers. Care South will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment.

We may collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful (including when you have speculatively applied to us in respect of a role which is not available), we will hold your data on file for 12 months. At the end of that period, your data is deleted or destroyed (unless we need to retain it for longer to exercise or defend any legal claims).

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained during your employment. Employee data is held for seven years after employment ceases.

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to Care South during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to process your application.

5.4 Tracking information

IP address – Care South may keep track of the pages visited by you. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when connecting to the internet so your computer can be identified. Care South may collect IP addresses for the purposes of but not limited to system administration, aggregating information and auditing the use of the website. This information does not identify you personally.

5.5 Cookies and sessions

Cookies are pieces of information that are transferred from a website to an individual’s computer hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies make surfing the web easier by saving your preferences and are used by most major websites. No personally identifiable information is collected or used in this process and this information does not identify you personally. Cookies show how and when visitors use our website, identifying which areas are popular and which are not and may be used by Care South to better understand and improve the website by making it more responsive to the needs and preferences of the website users.

You have the option to disallow receiving cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent at any time by re-setting your web browser. However, the Care South website may not function properly or may be considerably slower if you refuse cookies.

Sessions are similar to cookies and are a temporary memory which store data. This data is then cleared as soon as the website user closes down the website.  No personally identifiable information is collected.

5.6 Minors

Care South does not knowingly collect information from children or market its products or services to children. If you are under 13 please do not provide any personal information to us.

5.7 Disclosure

The information obtained by Care South through your use of our website will not be passed on to third parties without your consent. However, Care South reserves the right to disclose user information in special cases where Care South is required to by law or has a reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against anyone who may be causing injury, interference or disruption to our website, Care South’s rights or property, or where anyone else may be harmed by such activities.

5.8 Links to third party and other websites

Care South’s website includes links to other websites which allow you to connect to third party websites. The links are provided as a convenient method of accessing information that may be useful or of interest to you. These links are beyond the control of Care South and Care South does not accept any responsibility for them. These sites may have their own privacy policies similar, different or otherwise than that of our website and Care South is not responsible for and does not guarantee the privacy practices or the security of other sites. Upon clicking on a link you have left Care South’s website and the privacy policy stated on our website is no longer in effect.

5.9 Sharing of personal information

Care South’s website is subject to Google Analytics Software. The Google Analytics Software (‘the Software’) is separate to Care South and operated by Google Limited. The Software produces a report which shows the number of people who have clicked on our website but does not contain any personal identifiable information.

5.10 Security

Care South is committed to ensuring that your personal information is secure. Care South will take reasonable precautions to ensure security of its systems. The security of data transmission over the internet cannot be 100% guaranteed and as a result, although Care South takes reasonable steps to ensure the security of its users’ personal information and maintain their privacy, Care South cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to Care South online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of such personal information.

5.11 How long do we keep your data for?

We retain personal data:

  • For as long as it is being used for the purposes stated in this policy, or
  • Until we receive notification from you that you withdraw your consent for us to use it for these purposes and require us to remove the data from our records.

5.12 Your rights

You have the right to ask us:

  • For a copy of the data we hold about you;
  • To update the data we hold about you;
  • To stop using the data for any or all of the purposes specified;
  • To remove all the data we hold about you;
  • To transfer your data to another organisation.

5.13 The data controller

The data controller for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 is Care South, a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with company number 2565033 and whose registered charity number is 1014697 of 39 Commercial Road, Poole, Dorset BH14 0HU.

5.14 Disclaimer

The data contained in our website is for information purposes only and is not represented to be error free. Access and use of our website and its contents is at your own risk. Care South makes no warranties express or implied, concerning the content of its site, the accuracy, completeness, reliability or suitability of its site.

5.15 Debit and credit card payments

Retail policies for returns, refunds, cancellations and delivery are not applicable.

In accordance with data protection regulations, we have notified the office of the Information Commissioner of our data processing activities. Our registration number is Z8202489.

Please contact our Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@care-south.co.uk if you have any questions or concerns.

By submitting your application on-line you will be giving your consent to Care South to process your personal and sensitive personal data.

6. Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

7. Do we need your consent to use particularly sensitive information?

We do not need your consent if we use your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

8. Sharing information with third parties

As above, we may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. Such third parties include regulatory bodies such as Care Quality Commission, HM Revenue & Customs, outsourced payroll providers, and pension and benefit providers.

All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

9. Keeping your information safe

Any personal information we hold will be securely protected in line with not only internal security measures but also data protection guidelines. Our security measures are updated regularly to ensure your personal information is not accessible to anyone other than Care South.

Personal data gathered during the employment, worker, contractor or volunteer relationship, or apprenticeship, is held in the individual’s personnel file (in hard copy and/or electronic format) and on HR systems.

10. Your rights

The data that we keep about you is your data and we ensure that we keep it confidential and that it is used appropriately. You have the following rights when it comes to your data:

10.1 You have the right to request a copy of all of the data we keep about you. Generally, we will not charge for this service;

10.2 You have the right to ask us to correct any data we have which you believe to be inaccurate or incomplete. You can also request that we restrict all processing of your data while we consider your rectification request;

10.3 You have the right to ask that we erase any of your personal data which is no longer necessary for the purpose we originally collected it for;

10.4 You may also request that we restrict processing if we no longer require your personal data for the purpose we originally collected it for, but you do not wish for it to be erased;

10.5 You can ask for your data to be erased if we have asked for your consent to process your data. You can withdraw consent at any time – please contact us to do so;

10.6 If we are processing your data as part of our legitimate interests as an organisation or in order to complete a task in the public interest, you have the right to object to that processing. We will restrict all processing of this data while we look into your objection.

You may need to provide adequate information for our staff to be able to identify you, for example, a passport or driver’s licence. This is to make sure that data is not shared with the wrong person inappropriately. We will always respond to your request as soon as possible and at the latest within one month.

11. How we keep our privacy policy up to date

Our staff who are appointed to control and process personal information are delegated to assess all privacy risks continuously and to carry out comprehensive reviews of our data protection policies, procedures and protocols at least annually.

12. Data protection registration and contact

Care South is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as follows:

Company name/Data controller Care South
Company registration details Company Limited by Guarantee no. 02565033

(Also Registered Charity no. 1014697)

ICO Reg. No. Z8202489

 

The registered office for Care South is 39 Commercial Road, Poole BH14 0HU.

If you have any questions, comments, complaints or suggestions in relation to this Privacy Policy or any other concern about the way in which we process information about you, please contact our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@care-south.co.uk.