At Heart of Kent Hospice our Data Controller is Rachel Street, Chief Executive. This means that they are responsible for the collection and use of data within our organisation.
This privacy statement outlines why we collect data, what we use it for and who we share it with.
Individuals may share their personal information with us for a number of different reasons for example you may be a patient or their family member, a volunteer, a fundraiser or a supplier of goods to our organisation. Your information will only be used and managed by the team you have given it to, unless there is a legitimate reason for us to share it or you have explicitly given us permission to share it with another team.
Across our organisation we use specialist databases which are designed to securely store information relevant to your relationship with us.
Patients and Significant person
When a patient is referred to Heart of Kent Hospice, their contact details, medical history and details of their current care and medication plan are received by the Hospice from other health care professionals, such as GPs, hospitals and/or care homes. It is necessary for health care providers to share this information so that contact can be maintained with the patient and to create an appropriate care plan. We endeavour to double check that all of the information we receive is accurate and we will ask patients and their families or carers to provide any missing information so that we can maintain the highest quality records to support patient care. This may include contact details of a patients’ significant person and details of other health care professionals who are part of the patient’s care plan. This information is stored in paper files and on a specialist patient information database which is shared with the Care Plan Management System and other relevant health care professionals including GPs, District nurses and the ambulance service. This system can only be accessed by employees and volunteers who are directly responsible for providing patient care. All information relating to former patients, both on paper and held digitally is held in archive for eight years. We do not delete this information but may anonymise it for future trends analysis.
Patients can access their records as outlined in our Patient Access to Health Records policy. Further information on how to do this is available by writing to Kerry Harrison, Director of Patient Services at Heart of Kent Hospice.
Requests for access to patient records by next of kin and/or executors must be made in writing to Kerry Harrison, Director of Patient Services (and Caldicott Guardian). Each request will be considered on a case by case basis.
Heart of Kent Hospice are one of the partner organisations to the Kent and Medway Care Record (KMCR). The KMCR is an electronic care record which links your health and social care information held in different provider systems, to one platform. This allows health and social care professionals who have signed up to the KMCR to access the most up to date information to ensure you receive the best possible care and support by those supporting you. In order to enable this sharing of information, organisations who use the KMCR have agreements in place that allow the sharing of personal and special category data.
For further information about the Kent and Medway Care Record and the ways in which your data is used for this system please click here.
Colleagues and volunteers
Everyone who applies for a position at Heart of Kent Hospice in a paid for or voluntary position is required to complete an application form. The details captured on these forms are used to make contact in relation to the application, to fulfil our commitment to being an equal opportunities employer, to assist us in assessing the suitability of the applicant for our organisation and to enable us to meet the legislative requirements of our regulators.
As an equal opportunities employer, as standard, when applying for a position at Heart of Kent Hospice, all candidates (employees and volunteers) must complete an equality & diversity questionnaire. This information is only used for general monitoring and analysis. All successful employees and selected volunteers (dependent on the area of volunteering) must also apply for a disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to enable us to manage risk and meet our regulatory requirements.
Original forms are stored for one year for unsuccessful applicants before they are destroyed.
If you are offered employment, in keeping with our regulatory requirements, hard copy files of your original documentation, including your equality and diversity questionnaire, is stored securely and electronic records are held on our specialist People Services database which can only be accessed by colleagues and volunteers in the People Services team for the duration of your engagement with the Hospice. Occasionally, if it is necessary, your details may be shared with regulatory bodies relevant to your position. Post-employment, employee records are archived for seven years. Volunteer files are stored for one year after volunteering ends and are then destroyed. Electronic files for colleagues and volunteers are archived indefinitely.
Trustees
Everyone who joins us as a trustee and is successful must as colleagues and volunteers also apply for a disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to enable us to manage risk and meet our regulatory requirements. All original documentation is stored securely and electronic records are held by the executive office. These records are archived and destroyed 6 years after leaving post.
Shop gift aid donors
If supporters who donate items to our charity shops sign a gift aid declaration when they donate items, we record their full name, address and the sale price of their donations so that we can provide an audit trail for a gift aid claim. This information is not used for any other purpose. In line with HMRC guidelines this information is stored for seven years after which inactive records are deleted or archived.
Supporters - donors
When you make a donation to Heart of Kent Hospice, your name, address and the value of your donation is stored on our fundraising database so that we can provide a financial audit trail. We do not store any specific details relating to payment methods such as card details after your donation has been processed.
We use the information we collect to write to you to say thank you, and in future may invite you to make another similar donations, or to tell you about other fundraising activities that we think you will be interested in. We may send you general Hospice news updates too to explain how donations are being used and what our organisational priorities are.
We do not delete the details of previous donations from our database but we can archive records and ensure that no further contact is made if a supporter requests this. We can also do this if we are notified that the contact details we store are no longer accurate, or if the record lies inactive on our database.
Sometimes, when we are writing to large numbers of people, we use a mailing house to print and post our letters. This is the quickest and most cost effective way of sending large mailings. On these occasions your contact details will be shared with the mailing house, for the purposes of printing and posting our letters. We have signed agreement from each mailing house we use that they delete the information we share with them as soon as the mailing is complete.
As part of our effort to keep costs to a minimum by limiting the number of letters which get returned to us, we also use a data cleaning agency which de-duplicates our database against a national database to identify anomalies where residents records have been updated as deceased, or goneaway (usually because they have moved house). We also de-duplicate our database against the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) as a FPS exclusion will over-ride any previous consent you may have given to us to contact you.
Supporters – lottery
Heart of Kent Hospice weekly lottery and superdraws are supported by third party specialist agencies including the following: Sterling: Our external lottery manager, Yeomans: Our mailing house for superdraw mailings, Secure Collections: Our secure direct debit facilitators, Britevox : Our supporter recruitment partners.
Working with specialists in these areas ensures that we are able to operate a secure and reliable weekly draw which is compliant with the Gambling Commission.
The contact details and payment details of all players is stored and used by Sterling for the purpose of managing the weekly draw. Sterling transfer the bank details of players who pay by direct debit to Secure Collections on a weekly basis in order for them to process payments. Secure Collections and Britevoxdo not hold any player contact or payment information themselves. Britevox securely hold the contact and payment information which is collected by our fundrasiers when a new players signs up to the lottery and share it with Sterling to administer the weekly draw. Mailing and fulfilment agencies such as Yeomans or PFC Group Ltd use data that we provide them with to complete Superdraw mailings, they do not store this data for any other purposes. Heart of Kent Hospice has access to our lottery players contact information but we do not hold any payment information.
You may wish to limit gambling related adverts from your social media feeds, here is some guidance from www.begambleaware.org
Suppliers
Contact and payment details of our suppliers are stored in a specialist accounting system which enables us to log orders and process payments efficiently. This information is shared and stored securely with our bank to facilitate on-line transactions.
In keeping with good practice, paper records relating to orders made are archived for seven years after which they are destroyed. Electronic files are archived after one year.
The information we store can only be accessed by authorised individuals within the Hospice finance department.
Statistical analysis
The information we store on Hospice database’s can be used to monitor and assess performance across the Hospice and/or to identify trends. We use this information to help us to identify improvements that can be made to meet patient needs, identify unmet needs and re-act swiftly if unusual results are identified. We also use this analysis to help build our financial budgets and identify new income generating opportunities. Anonymised data is used for this type of activity.
Digital communications
By visiting our website or reacting to our social media communications you may also be sharing some basic information with us automatically, such as your browser type and IP address (This is the case when you visit most website and social media platforms). We have the ability to use this information through analytics tools which enables us to improve the content we provide to visitors, and provide tailored content based on users’ personal preferences and profiles.
Our website uses cookies. Cookies are small computer files which are downloaded onto your device and collect information about the way in which visitors to our website navigate and use it, and how they use the internet. Cookies do not collect any information which allows us to identify individual users. They collect information which can help us to provide you with a more personal experience and identify ways we can improve our website over time. You can delete and block all cookies or decide just to block certain types of cookie via your browser setting. However, if you choose to block or delete cookies, this may affect the functionality of the website.
How to change your preferences
When you share your personal information with us, we promise to use it respectfully, and only for the purposes that you originally shared it for. Please do tell us if you would like us to change:
how we contact you – mail, email, telephone
what we contact you about
or if you would prefer that we don’t send you anything at all
This will help us to keep our expenditure to a minimum.
You can call the Fundraising Team at the Hospice on 01622 790195 who will cascade your request to the appropriate team within the Hospice; email preferences@hokh.co.uk or write to Christina Eldridge, Head of Information and Quality Assurance at Heart of Kent Hospice, Preston Hall, Maidstone, ME20 7PU.
We will update our records within three working days. It can however, sometimes take up to two months for all planned activity and scheduled mailings to conclude.
How to make a complaint
If you are unhappy with how your data has been used, please do speak to us. In the first instance we encourage you to speak to the manager of the department your experience relates to. If you need help getting in touch with the right person, please contact ann.bubb@hokh.co.uk who will be able to help. If you are still dis-satisfied, you can follow the Hospice’s formal complaints procedure which can be found here.
Updates
This statement was last reviewed in January 2021. It is kept under regular review and changes are made as required. We encourage you should periodically review this statement for changes. If however, any material changes are made and where we are required under privacy and data protection legislation, we will notify you or give you the option to consent to any changes as necessary.
Contact
Please get in touch if you have any questions about the content of this privacy notice or would like to get in touch with our Data Protection Officer, Christina Eldridge by emailing preferences@hokh.co.uk. If would like to exercise your rights with regards to accessing your personal information you can write to Kerry Harrison, Director of Patient Services, Heart of Kent Hospice, Preston Hall, Maidstone, ME20 7PU
This document was last updated in November 2022.