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Ashgate Hospice > Privacy Policy
Who we are and what we do

We are here for the people of North Derbyshire and beyond. We work together with energy, care and compassion so that people can have a good death in a place of their choosing and know that their loved ones are important to us too.

We provide palliative and end of life care free of charge to people aged 18 and over. We care for people living with a life-limiting illness, including cancer, neurological diseases, and end-stage heart, kidney and lung diseases.

We aim to ensure that our patients are well informed, supported and pain free. While our purpose is to provide end of life care, our work doesn’t only begin at the very end of someone’s life. We can help improve quality of life soon after a terminal diagnosis. We also support people’s loved ones to ensure they get the practical, emotional and bereavement support they need.

When it comes to funding, much of the care and services we deliver are funded by the generosity of our supporters. In fact, more than 60% of what we do is paid for through fundraising and less than 40% comes from local NHS budgets.

We care about your personal information and it’s important that you know how we use it and how we keep it safe. This Privacy Policy covers how, when and why we use your information. It also explains the choices you have about the way in which we use your information and outlines your rights.

We are always happy to provide additional information and our Data Protection Officer can be contacted either by email, telephone or in writing using these contact details:

Address: Data Protection Officer, Ashgate Hospice, Ashgate Road, Old Brampton, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S42 7JD.

Telephone: 01246 568801

Email: [email protected]

This Privacy Policy applies to all personal information held by Ashgate Hospice, whether you are a patient, service user, member of staff, volunteer, supporter or contractor.

Reviews and changes to our Privacy Policy

We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review. We will make updates if any of our processes or legislation changes. We advise you to visit this page regularly to keep up to date with any changes. This policy was last reviewed in January 2024.

Why we process personal information

We process personal information for various reasons:

  • We collect and hold information about patients and next of kin to enable us to give the correct care and treatment and to contact you and your loved ones about your healthcare or treatment. The information is held electronically and in paper records.
  • We collect and hold information about our staff, volunteers and Trustees to communicate and carry out administration in line with their contract, as necessary for their role.
  • We collect and hold information from donors and supporters to make better decisions about how we raise and spend funds. As a registered charity, the hospice relies largely on the people living in its local community for support – both financially and through Gifts in Kind, and we have a legal obligation to retain this information.
  • We hold information about our suppliers, including financial and contact information, who provide us with goods and services as part of a contract.
  • We collect certain technical data from visitors to our website to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device. For more information, please see our ‘Cookies’ section further down this page.

We do not always need to use personal information. Sometimes we will use information that does not identify you i.e. statistics or anonymised reports.

How we collect and use personal information

We can receive personal information face to face, electronically, on paper (such as a completed form) or verbally (during telephone conversations).

The information may come to us:

  • directly from you, such as when you make a donation, attend the hospice as a patient, sign up to an event, join our lottery, sign up as a Gift Aid donor in one of our shops, sign up as a volunteer or member of staff.
  • from another organisation, for example, where you use fundraising sites such as Just Giving, to fundraise for us. These organisations may share your personal data with us if you allow them to do so.
  • from social media sites or apps. If your settings and preferences allow, we can receive information from social media services, such as Facebook.

Information about other people

If you provide personal information to us about another person, please make sure the person understands how their information will be used and that you are allowed to share it with us.

The personal information we collect

The type of personal information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it. If you support us, for example, by making a donation, volunteering, fundraising, signing up for an event or buying something from our shop, we will usually collect your name and your contact details. Occasionally, we may ask for your date of birth, for example, if there is an age restriction on an event you have chosen to take part in (e.g. lottery players must be over 16).

If you are attending the hospice as a patient or service user, we will ask for detailed medical information. Our commitment to you is that we will only use this information for providing you with direct healthcare or treatment. We will share this information with other organisations, for example, your own GP, community nurse or hospital, in connection with healthcare or treatment to make sure that you receive the best quality care, both here at the hospice and in the comfort of your own home.

As part of our fundraising activities, and where it is appropriate, we may ask:

  • for information relating to your health (for example, if you are taking part in a high-energy event such as one of our marathons or skydives).
  • how you heard about us.
  • why you have decided to donate to us (we understand that you may have private reasons and we only want to know the answer if you are comfortable telling us).
  • for your bank or credit card details in order to pay for goods or as a sign-up fee (these details are used for the single transaction only and are destroyed after use).

Where we are required to use personal information, we will only do this if we have a legal reason to do so. Please see below for further details:

  • The information is necessary for providing you with direct healthcare.
  • We have received consent from you to use your information for a specific purpose other than healthcare e.g. fundraising, lottery, research.
  • There is an overriding public interest in using the information e.g. to safeguard an individual or to prevent a serious crime.
  • There is a legal requirement that will allow us to use or provide information e.g. a formal Court order, returns to HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs), information provided to regulatory bodies i.e. Care Quality Commission (CQC).
  • We have set up a formal contract regarding the supply of goods or services or for employment purposes.
  • We have a legitimate interest e.g. someone who wishes to volunteer for us, for direct marketing purposes (we will only use ‘legitimate interests’ where you have expressed an interest in an event or have taken part previously). For all other direct marketing purposes, we will only contact you if you have provided us with valid consent.
Our commitment to data privacy and confidentiality

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only process personal information in accordance with data protection laws and guidance from appropriate regulators e.g. CQC, ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office). The hospice has a local policy on confidentiality which is available on request.

Ashgate Hospice is a Data Controller and we are legally responsible for ensuring that all personal information that we use is done in compliance with the law.

As a data controller, we are required to register with the ICO. Our ICO number is Z6214584 and our entry can be found on the Data Protection Register on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Everyone working for us has a legal duty to keep personal information confidential. Information about you will only be shared with authorised people who have a legal and legitimate need to see it.

All personal information will be held securely and confidentially. We use administrative and technical controls to do this.

All our staff, volunteers and Leadership Team receive appropriate training to ensure they are aware of their personal responsibilities to maintain confidentiality.

We will only keep information for as long as we need to. Our Records Management Policy is in line with the NHS Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care.

Some of our data processing takes place outside of the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. Where this occurs, we ensure that your information is protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws. We will direct you to further privacy information where appropriate.

We will never sell any information about you or pass it onto anyone who is not authorised to receive it.

Your rights

You have certain rights over how your information is processed. They are:

The right to be informed – we must tell you what we do with your personal information and why we are processing it.

The right of access – this is the right for you to have access to and copies of information that we hold about you.

The right to rectification – this is the right to have your personal data amended if it is incorrect or incomplete.

The right to erasure – this is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. Health records are kept in line with NHS national guidance, and it is extremely rare that we destroy or delete records earlier than the recommended retention period. We also have a statutory obligation to hold other records for a certain period of time e.g. staff records, volunteer records, records of donations, legacies. Therefore, a request for erasure of all or part of any record will always need to be discussed with our Data Protection Officer.

The right to restrict processing – this is the right to block or suppress the processing of your personal data. Please note, it will not be possible to restrict processing whilst someone is receiving care and treatment at the hospice.

The right to data portability – this is the right to receive your personal information if you have provided it to us as part of an automated process. You can also ask us to transfer your information to another organisation.

The right to object – this is the right to object to the hospice processing data because of a particular situation. It is extremely rare that we will stop processing your health data if you wish to continue to be treated by the hospice. We also have a statutory obligation to process other records e.g. staff records, volunteer records, records of donations, legacies. Therefore, a request to stop processing will always need to be discussed with our Data Protection Officer.

Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling – this safeguards individuals against the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention. The hospice does not undertake automated decision making. We sometimes conduct profiling activities of our supporters. We ensure we adhere to data protection legislation and strict risk assessment procedures. We always ensure that this type of information is carefully checked before we act upon it.

You have the right to refuse or withdraw consent to information sharing at any time by using the contact details at the top of this page. If there are any consequences to withdrawing consent, these will be fully discussed with you first.

Complaints

Ashgate Hospice aims to meet the highest standards when processing personal information. We take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring concerns to our attention and we also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures. Contact details for complaints regarding the processing of information should be directed to our Data Protection Officer using the details provided at the top of this page.

You can also raise a concern directly with the ICO; although our aim is to resolve your complaint swiftly ourselves in the first instance. For more information on how to make a suggestion or complaint, please see our guidance leaflet ‘A Guide to Suggestions and

Cookies

Most websites you visit will use cookies to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier.

Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting, or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing.

We use cookies as part of our website, but no personal information is stored. The cookies are only used to improve how our website functions and make it easier for you to use it.

What is in a cookie?

A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server and only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier, the site name and some digits and numbers. It allows a website to remember things like your preferences e.g. which adverts you would prefer to see.

What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set

Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their computer or mobile device intrusive. Although this is generally harmless, you may not, for example, want to see advertising that has been targeted to your interests. If you prefer, you can block the non-essential cookies, or even delete cookies that have already been set but you may lose some functions of the website. When you first access our website, you will have a choice to accept or block non-essential cookies. If you have any concerns about cookies, please contact our Data Protection Officer.