Trusted assessor service for care assessment privacy notice - Privacy notices

For potential care homes to make informed decisions regarding a potential care home stay, it is necessary for us to collect and hold personal information about you. This information will relate to you, your health and your care needs. This information will include:

• Basic details about you and your family such as address, date of birth, telephone numbers, email address, NHS number
• Relevant personal sensitive information such as religion, ethnic origin, disability status, education, marital status, relevant offences (including alleged offences), relevant criminal records
• Contact we have had with you and/or your family such as visits and telephone calls
• 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

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. Hoople Ltd are the Data Processors who will process your information on behalf of the council.

• We will collect information about you to compile a current accurate assessment of care needs to be shared with a care home or homes to enable them to decide if they can meet your current care needs.
• We may use your personal data to improve our service, such as internal auditing and peer reviews.

The legal basis for processing the data is:

• Article 6(1)(d): the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life.
• Article 6(1)(e): the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
• Article 9(2)h: processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working  capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services, on the basis of Union or Member state laws.

The basis in law is covered by a variety of legislation which includes Equality Act 2010, Health Act 2009, Health and Social Care Bill 2011, Care Act 2014, Human Rights Act 1998, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Mental Health Act 2007, Homeless Reduction Act 2018 The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Welfare Reform Act 2012. Where the statutory requirements apply the Trusted Assessors are obliged to process personal data for the purposes outlined above.

We may share your information with partner organisations including:

• 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 and psychologists
• A care home or multiple care homes internally and externally to your current local authority. These homes review the information gathered and use this to decide if they can meet your current care needs. Once the information is sent to care homes, the homes own privacy notices apply to the data
• 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 if relevant
• All relevant departments within the local authority (this includes the local authority you may be entering into and your current one) such as adults and communities (aka social services), home improvement agency, occupational therapists, community brokers, housing.
• If there are any concerns of a safeguarding nature we will share relevant information with them (this includes past and present local authorities)
• We may share your information with the National Patient Safety Agency, the Care Quality Commission and Health Watch for reporting accidents and information
• 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
• On occasions, your information may be accessed by contracted IT support organisations in the delivery of IT support for both the IT infrastructure and associated systems, for the processes detailed in this privacy notice. Access by IT support will only be for such reasons as fixing any technical issues with software, and any viewing of data will be incidental to this.

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, and in risk of harm or emergency situations. Any information which is shared will only be shared on a need to know basis, with appropriate individuals. Only the minimum information for the purpose will be shared.

We will only keep your information for the minimum period necessary. The information outlined in this privacy notice will be kept for 6 years after last contact. All information will be held securely and destroyed under confidential conditions.

https://ico.org.uk/You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to request your information and to request that the information be amended or erased if incorrect.

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 a 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 Trusted Assessors in the first instance at herccg.trustedassessors@nhs.net. You can also contact the Data Protection Officer, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE, email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

More information about data protection and how it applies to you can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

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