Adults' wellbeing privacy notice - Privacy notices

This privacy notice covers the advice and referral team, social care operations, direct payments, housing, quality and review, Home First, deprivation of liberties, the welfare and assessment team, Occupational Therapy, telecare, Home Improvement Agency, transitions, brokerage and the Shared Lives Scheme.

To make informed decisions regarding your safety and wellbeing and to make appropriate services available to you, it is necessary for us to collect and hold personal information about you. This information may relate to you, your family and any other persons in your household. Data will include:

• Basic details about you and your family such as address, telephone number, email address, NHS number, National Insurance number
• Relevant personal sensitive information such as religion, ethnic origin, disability status, education, marital status, offences (including alleged offences), criminal record, employment details
• Financial, property and welfare benefit information where it is relevant
• Contact we have had with you, such as home visits and meetings
• Assessments, reports and care plans about you
• Records of decisions made about you and the support services you need and receive
• Relevant information from anyone who cares for or knows you, for example a health professional or a relative
• Copies of assessments and reports written by third party agencies
• Information relating to your housing status

The third party agencies referred to above may include health professionals, police and any other organisation with whom you are currently or historically been involved with.

All personal data held, is processed in accordance with data protection law. The data controller for the information outlined in this privacy notice is Herefordshire Council.

Where joint data controllers are identified as part of providing services to you, you will be made aware of this.

Hoople Ltd are the data processors who will process any service and financial information, if relevant, on behalf of the council.

We will collect information about you, your family and those that care for you (where applicable) to make informed decisions regarding support services and/or care you need, how it will be met and how you will be charged (where applicable).

The legal basis for processing the data is our legal obligations for social care provision, and the necessity for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the social care department.

The statutory legal obligation is covered by a variety of legislation which includes The Care Act 2014, The Carers Act 2004, Equality Act 2010, Health Act 2009, Health and Social Care Bill 2011, Human Rights Act 1998, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Mental Health Act 2007, The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Housing Act 1996/2002 and Homeless Reduction Act 2018, Welfare Reform Act 2012, Social Security Regulations 2012, Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.

Where the statutory requirements apply social care is obliged to process personal data for the purposes outlined above.

We may share information about you or your family with partner organisations where relevant and appropriate or where safeguarding concerns are raised. These organisations may include:

• Health professionals such as hospitals, GPs, community nurses and ambulance services. Where relevant this may also include specialist health professionals who may be currently involved with you, your family and any other person living in your home, or those to whom a referral is being made on your behalf. This may include specialist mental health services, psychologist
• Police may be approached for relevant information to enable appropriate decisions to be made about the safety and security of you, your family and any other person living in your home. This will include full disclosures of criminal history and sentencing. Sensitive information will only be shared if it is relevant
• If you tell us that you and your family are currently working with any other organisations we will approach them for information to ensure that we have a full picture of the current and historical situation for you and your family
• All relevant departments within our own authority such as the home improvement agency, occupational therapists, community brokers, housing, Council Tax. Some services may be not be internal to the council and may be completed under contract so we will provide information to the services to enable them to fulfil their contract and provide services to you, for example Hoople for finance services for the council
• If you require residential, nursing or domiciliary care, we will share your details with service providers to identify an appropriate placement to meet your needs
• If your care needs are met through a direct payment, we may share your details with a card company, and/or approved support provider to manage your account (where appropriate)
• If there are any concerns of a safeguarding nature and you have moved from our area, we may be contacted by your new local authority and social work teams. We will share relevant information with them
• If you require equipment, adaptations, rehousing or technology enabled care services we may share your details with relevant provider services including housing providers, equipment providers, monitoring services, and/or voluntary services where relevant
• We may share your information with the National Patient Safety Agency, the Care Quality Commission and Health Watch for reporting accidents and information
• We may share with and/or obtain information about you from the Department of Work and Pensions for the purpose of administering financial assessments and welfare benefits where applicable
• Subject to strict agreements describing how it will be used, the information we gather may be shared with any of the multi-agency professionals working with you and your family or those to whom we make a referral on your behalf
• We may share personal data to be used to improve our services, such as with an organisation such as the Local Government Association auditing our work through a peer review
• If your care needs are met through home care, we will share your information with the providers who will be providing you with services to meet your needs

If there are no safeguarding concerns, we will not normally share your information with organisations other than our partner organisations without your consent. However, there may be certain circumstances where we would share without consent such as where we are required to do so by law, to safeguard public safety or funds and in risk of harm or emergency situations. We will only share the minimum information for the purpose, on a need to know basis and with appropriate individuals.

We will only keep your information for the minimum period necessary. All information will be held securely and destroyed under confidential conditions. The information outlined in this privacy notice will be kept as detailed below:

Your entire record will be retained for the maximum retention period relevant for that file. If you would like further clarification on how retention periods are applied, please discuss this with your worker.

You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to request your information and to request that the information is amended or erased if incorrect. Mistakes can be rectified however where your opinion of the information held on record differs from that of the professional, we will record this as an addendum to the report. Your opinion will be shared whenever the report is shared, however, the report can only be amended where there is a factual inaccuracy.

To request your records, you will need to provide proof of identification and write to the Information Governance Team, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE or email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

You also have the right to make a complaint about our handling of your personal data to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your information is used, please contact the relevant team in the first instance.

You can also contact the Data Protection Officer, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE, email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

You can find more information about data protection and how it applies to you on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

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