We will always make sure that your personal data is protected and treated securely. Any information that you give will be held in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
We also make our Information Asset Register available for people to read to give further clarity about how data relating to them is managed and kept secure. This includes our retention schedule and clear details about the lawful basis for storing and keeping personal data.
Find out more about our Information Governance Policy and our Retention and Disposal Schedule
Information we collect
We collect personal data from visitors to this website through the use of online forms and every time you email us your details. We also collect feedback and views from people about the health and social care services that they access. In addition, we receive information about our own staff and people who apply to work for us.
- Information about people who use our website
- Information about people who share their experiences with us by other means
- Information about our own staff and people applying to work for us
Security
We are strongly committed to data security and we take reasonable and appropriate steps to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or corruption.
We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information you provide to us.
Only authorised employees and contractors under strict controls will have access to your personal data.
How we share information with other organisations
We only share personal data with other organisations where it is lawful to do so and in accordance with our Information Governance Policy. Information is shared in order to fulfill our remit which is to pass on your experiences of care to help improve them on your behalf.
Among others, we work with Healthwatch England, North Central London Integrated Care Board, Barnet Council, Care Quality Commission (CQC), health and social care commissioners, NHS England, NHS Improvement and the Department of Health and Social Care to make this happen. We can also engage external suppliers to process personal data on our behalf.
We will only disclose your personal data where we have your consent to do so, or where there is another very good reason to make the disclosure – for example, we may disclose information to CQC or a local authority where we think it is necessary to do so in order to protect a vulnerable person from abuse or harm. Any such disclosure will be made in accordance with the requirements of the current data protection legislation.
Wherever possible, we will ensure that any information that we share or disclose is anonymised, so as to ensure that you cannot be identified from it.
We may sometimes use other organisations to process personal data on our behalf. Where we do this, those companies are required to follow the same rules and information security requirements as us, outlined in a Data Processing Agreement. They are not permitted to use reuse the data for other purposes.
Retention and disposal of personal data
We publish a retention and disposal schedule which explains how long we keep different types of records and documents for, including records and documents containing personal data. Personal data is deleted or securely destroyed at the end of its retention period.
Your rights
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Your right to access information about you - If you think we may hold personal data relating to you and want to see it please email info@healthwatchbarnet.co.uk or write to Healthwatch Hounslow, Tottenham Town Hall, Town Hall Approach Road, London N15 4RX.
You have a right to receive a copy of this personal data, or to ask us to forward it to a person or organisation of your choice. Wherever possible, we will provide the personal data to you in your preferred format.
- Correcting or deleting your personal data - If you know that we are holding your personal data and believe that it may be wrong, or if you want it to be deleted or for us to stop using it, you have a right to request that it can be deleted or amended. Please make your objection in writing to info@healthwatchbarnet.co.uk or send it by post to Healthwatch Barnet, Tottenham Town Hall, Town Hall Approach Road, London N15 4RX.
- Complaints about how we look after or use your information - If you feel that we have not met our responsibilities under data protection legislation, you have a right to request an independent assessment from the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can find details on their website.
Our contact details and key roles
Healthwatch Barnet is an independent consumer champion and is managed and run by Public Voice CIC. The data controller of personal data collected via this website is Public Voice CIC. Any issues relating to the processing of personal data by or on behalf of Healthwatch Haringey may be addressed to Public Voice, Tottenham Town Hall, Town Hall Approach Road, London N15 4RX.
Call us on 020 3196 1900 between the hours of 9.00 – 17.00 Monday to Friday. Alternatively you can email us on info@publicvoice.london.
Information about people who use our website
Please note that this statement does not cover links within this website to other websites.
When you browse this website, we collect personal data provided by you, such as:
- feedback from surveys and online forms
- email addresses
- preferred means of communication.
We will tell you why we need your personal information and how we'll use it.
a. Information that you give us
We might ask for your name and contact details, depending on what you're doing.
The personal data that we process includes information about racial or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender and sexuality. We use this information to check we are promoting and ensuring diversity in our workforce and to make sure we are complying with equalities legislation. As we are subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty which requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities, we need to collect data on equality issues.
When you give us any personal information we'll let you know how long we'll hold it for. We only hold your information for as long as we have a valid reason to keep it.
b. Device information
Devices are lots of things like:
- your computer
- your mobile
- your TV
- your tablet
- your voice-enabled device
We automatically collect some technical information from these devices and web browsers. This might include:
- IP (internet protocol) address
- device ID
- app ID
Cookies
Cookies are small text files which are transferred to your computer or mobile when you visit a website or app. We use them to help us understand how people are using our services, so we can make them better.
Please be aware that some systems on our website require the use of cookies, however where non-essential cookies are in use, we will only collect the information with your permission.
Find out more about our use of Cookies
How we will use your personal information
Personal information about you can be used for the following purposes:
- in our day-to-day work;
- to send you our newsletter where you have requested it;
- to respond to any queries you may have;
- to improve the quality and safety of care.
We do these things as part of the statutory role of Healthwatch, established under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012).
This may include any personal data that you choose to share with us, but we will treat this as confidential and protect it accordingly.
We will never include your personal data in survey reports unless you have specifically given us consent to do so.
Signing up to our newsletter
We use a third-party supplier to provide our newsletter service. By subscribing to this service, you will be agreeing to them handling your data.
The third-party supplier handles the data purely to provide this service on our behalf. This supplier follows the requirements of the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 in how they obtain, handle and process your personal data and will not make your data available to anyone other than Healthwatch Barnet.
Information about our own staff and people applying to work with us
We need to process personal data about our own staff (and people applying to work for us) so that we can carry out our role and meet our legal and contractual responsibilities as an employer.
The personal data that we process includes information about racial or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender and sexuality. We use this information to check we are promoting and ensuring diversity in our workforce and to make sure we are complying with equalities legislation.
Our employees decide whether or not to share this monitoring data with us, and can choose to withdraw their consent for this at any time. Employees who wish to withdraw their consent for us to process this data can let us know.
Other personal data that we are required to process includes information on qualifications and experience, pay and performance, contact details and bank details.
We check that people who work for us are fit and suitable for their roles. This may include asking people to undertake Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
We have a legal obligation to comply with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and this may include the requirement to disclose some information about our employees – especially those in senior or public facing roles. We also publish some information about our staff, including the names and work contact details of people in some roles.