Patients, Families and Carers Privacy Policy

1. What personal and special category data do we collect and process about you?

St David’s Hospice Care keeps records about the healthcare and treatment you receive. We may also record personal data such as religion, sexuality and gender, should you choose to tell us this.

2. How do we collect your personal information?

Usually, we collect clinical information from the professional referring you to the hospice, which is inputted into our Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system. We make an ongoing record of the hospice care you receive, most of which is done using our EPR. We can also view your GP record through an electronic data sharing system.

3. Why do we process your personal information?

The clinical information we collect helps us deliver safe, effective and joined up healthcare. Processing other personal data such a religion, sexuality and gender, helps us check if our services are inclusive to all in our community, and also helps us deliver care that is personalised to your needs.

4. What are our legal grounds for processing your personal information?

Everyone working for St David's Hospice Care must comply with the Common Law Duty of Confidence and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) 2018. UK GDPR defines personal information as information that could be used to identify you. We process your personal information using 'legitimate interests'. In practice, this means we believe it is necessary and proportionate to do so, in order to deliver our services.

Information you provide to St David’s Hospice Care will only be used for the purposes explained to you unless there are other circumstances covered by the law.

5. What are our legal grounds for processing your special category data?

Under UK GDPR, health data is considered to be special category data as it is more sensitive data. GDPR allows the processing of health data in order to facilitate the provision of health care.

6. What would happen if we did not collect and process your personal information?

We would not be able to deliver effective healthcare.

7. What do we do with any personal information that is provided by third parties?

Where this relates to clinical care, this will be entered onto our EPR.

8. Who do we share your information with?

Where appropriate, we share your information for healthcare purposes with other healthcare organisations, in order to improve your ongoing care. Examples of NHS organisations include; GP practices, hospitals, ambulance services and other primary care agencies, such as community nursing teams. Examples of non-NHS organisations may include;

•              Social Services

•              Education Services

•              Local Authorities

•              The Police

•              Voluntary Sector Providers

•              Private Sector Providers

9. Safeguarding:

St David's Hospice Care has a duty to work together with our partner organisations to safeguard children and adults at risk from all forms of abuse and neglect. This may occasionally require us to share your information but we would always aim to discuss this with you first and only share what is necessary for safeguarding purposes.

10. Research and Service planning:

We share limited elements of patient data with NHS Wales, the NHS organisation that has oversight of health services in our area. The purpose of sharing this limited data is to give NHS Wales better understanding of how our population are using health services, which in turn helps development and planning of local health services.

11. How your information is used to improve our work:

Your information will help us manage our services and protect the health of the public by being used to:

•              Review the care we provide to ensure it is of the highest standard and quality, e.g. through clinical audit or service improvement activities, and where practical, data will be anonymised.

•              Investigate patient queries, incidents, complaints and legal claims - this data would not be anonymised.

•              Prepare statistics on our activity and performance, using anonymised data.

•              Undertake health research using anonymised data. Research requiring personal data would require your specific consent.

•              Train and educate healthcare professionals using anonymised data, unless you have given specific consent otherwise.

13. Further Information:

For further information, email enquires@stdavidshospicecare.org

The Patients, Families & Carers Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. The current version is always available on this page.