Introduction
Hospice at Home West Cumbria is committed to protecting your privacy. This statement explains how we collect and use the personal information you provide to us whether online or via phone, mobile, email, letter or other correspondence.
By using our website, any of our services or providing us with any personal information we will assume you are agreeing to your information being used and disclosed in the ways described in this policy.
We ask that you read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
Who we are
Hospice at Home West Cumbria provides high quality, palliative and end of life care to people living in West Cumbria and we are the only provider of adult hospice services in this area. This means that all funds raised by local people help us to provide care for those in need within their own community.
Established in 1987 we have been nationally and internationally recognised as delivering an excellent model for home-based palliative and end of life care.
Hospice at Home West Cumbria (HHWC) is a registered charity (number 1086837) and a company limited by guarantee (number 4191126). We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office as a data controller (number Z2999472).
Hospice at Home West Cumbria
Therapy and Information Centre, 10 Finkle Street, Workington, Cumbria, CA14 2BB
Tel: 01900 873173
Email: info@hhwc.org.uk
Our website address is: https://hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk.
If you have any questions or queries about this Privacy and Data Protection Statement, please contact our Data Protection Officer, using the above address and contact details.
What Do We Do
Home nursing is at the heart of Hospice at Home West Cumbria. We provide skilled nursing care on a one-to-one basis to adults within their own home or alternative residential settings, enabling them to remain in their chosen place of care at end of life.
We deliver a range of family and bereavement support services for families, carers and those bereaved; these include one to one support, group support and complementary therapy. This support enables people to cope during the most difficult and challenging times in their lives.
We are also the sole providers of specialist lymphoedema care in West Cumbria. This is a particularly challenging condition that affects many people. It can be as a result of cancer or cancer treatment but it can also be caused by other non-cancer related conditions.
Our care and support is available to those with a life limiting illness, regardless of cause, and is offered for free at the point of need.
As a charity we have to fundraise to cover the costs of our service delivery. Our fundraising team works with supporters in our local communities to organise fundraising events and campaigns, as well as supporting people to organise their own events.
Data Protection Laws
In carrying out our day-to-day activities, we process and store personal information relating to our service users and supporters and we are therefore required to adhere to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998/General Data Protection Regulations 2018 (GDPR).
We take our responsibilities under these acts very seriously and we ensure the personal information we obtain is held, used, transferred and otherwise processed in accordance with that Act and all other applicable data protection laws and regulations including, but not limited to, the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.
Personal data in our databases is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and volunteers who need to access your personal information as an essential part of their role. We employ security technology including firewalls and encryption to safeguard personal data and have procedures in place to ensure that paper and computer systems and databases are protected against unauthorised disclosure, use, loss and damage.
What personal information do we collect?
Basic Information
This includes your name, email address, postal address, telephone numbers and date of birth.
We collect information about the donations you make including how much, when and your reasons for donating.
Information for Gift Aid
We also collect information about whether you are a UK taxpayer so that we can claim Gift Aid (please rest assured we do not collect information about your actual tax payments, just whether you are a tax payer or not).
Sensitive Personal Information
In our clinical services, the staff caring for you need to collect and maintain information so that you can be given the best possible care. Information collected may include details about your health, diagnosis and medical conditions and the key health care professionals involved. We may also collect information about your home situation, family members and carers in order to allow us to develop a bespoke care package for you.
For non-clinical services, we do not usually collect 'sensitive personal information' about you unless there is a clear reason for doing so, such as participation in an event where we need this information to ensure we provide appropriate facilities for you. We may collect health information if you tell us about your experiences of the Hospice (for example, if you act as a case study for us); however, we will make it clear to you when collecting this information as to what we are collecting, why and how we will use it.
Event-specific information
We may ask you for information for specific events. This is so that we can cater for your needs at our fundraising events and ensure events are safe and legal. For example:
If you are participating in an event for us we will ask for your t-shirt size so that we can provide you with a t-shirt.
Information about volunteers
As appropriate for the volunteer role, we may ask for:
emergency contact information
contact details for referees
your interests, experience and relevant qualifications
your driving licence record
any previous convictions
your DBS
relevant medical conditions
if you have been bereaved in the past 18 months.
We collect this information so that we can give you a volunteer role suitable and support you to do this role. We also have to ensure that those we care for are safe.
Where do we collect your data from?
In most cases we collect data about you when you give it to us.
We collect personal information about you when you:
refer into our clinical services
ask about our activities
register with us
donate to us, either through our shops or to our fundraising department
volunteer
sign up for an event
engage with our social media or message boards
play our lottery
order products and services
or otherwise give us personal information.
We also collect data about you from other sources such as fundraising platforms like JustGiving, and funeral directors who pass on donations you make to us. We may also collect information about you from social media when you interact with us on these platforms.
We may make use of profiling and screening methods to produce relevant communications and so provide a better experience for our supporters. Profiling can help us target our resources more effectively through gaining an insight into the background of our supporters and helping us to build relationships that are appropriate to their interests and capacity to give.
How and why do we use your data?
Where we have your consent we will use your data:
to send you direct marketing e.g. our Light up a Life appeal or our newsletter. This may be via email, postal mail, text or telephone depending on what consent you have given us
to provide you with the services, products or information you have requested
to invite you to participate in surveys or research
We have a legal obligation to use your data:
to claim Gift Aid (this involves sharing your information with HMRC)
for the purposes of credit risk reduction or fraud prevention (regrettably some people target charities for illegal purposes such as money laundering and, quite rightly, we are required to monitor financial activity and report suspected fraud to the appropriate authorities). See below for more information about this.
It is in our legitimate interest to use your data:
to process any donation(s) we may receive from you
for administration purposes
for internal record keeping, such as the management of feedback or complaints
to analyse and improve the services we offer
to check on your preferences from time-to-time to ensure they are up to date
to make contact with you for administrative purposes for example to ask you about Gift Aid or your lottery account.
to send you direct marketing about ways in which you have supported the Hospice previously and where you have not specifically told us not to contact you. For example, if you made a donation to our Light up a Life appeal, we will send it to you unless you tell us not to.
We do this because we believe it is necessary for our legitimate interests because our supporters are very important to Hospice at Home West Cumbria and all of our supporters deserve to have the information concerning their support recorded accurately and for it to be used to keep a proper account of the dealings we have with the public and to keep the public fully informed about the work of the hospice where requested.
We use your data to fulfil a contract:
to deliver care and support services to you
to send you the items you have ordered
if you play our lottery or enter a raffle or competition.
We may also send you service communications via e-mail, text or social posting, for example when you donate online or by text.
We will not use your information for marketing purposes if you have asked us not to. However, we will retain your details on a suppression list to help ensure we do not continue to contact you for marketing purposes.
If we were to merge with another charity or restructure, we may share your personal details with other entities involved in the merger/restructure for that purpose but we would give you full information before doing so.
More information about why we use your information for credit risk reduction and or fraud prevention
To comply with our obligations as a charity we take reasonable and appropriate steps to know who our donors are, particularly where significant sums are being donated. This means that we may conduct research, including accessing information which is already publicly available, on prospective donors, partners or volunteers to ensure it would be right for us to accept support whether that is from an individual or organisation. This will help to give assurance that the donation is not from an inappropriate source and to safeguard our reputation. This does not mean that we will question every donation, or that we will research lots of personal and other details about every donor. Any information we do collect for this purpose will only consist of what is necessary for us to meet these requirements and will be processed in line with your rights.
Your information may be used to ensure that Hospice at Home West Cumbria complies with the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice, which stipulates that we must take steps to assess and manage risks to our work and reputation with regard to certain levels of donation. More details can be found at www.fundraisingregulator.co.uk
Credit, debit card and standing order payment information
If you are making a payment to us we may also collect your bank account details and credit/debit card details.
We do not store your credit or debit card details at all following the completion of your transaction.
All card details and validation codes are securely destroyed once the payment or donation has been processed. Only those staff authorised to process payments will be able to see your card details.
If we receive an email containing any credit or debit card details, it will be immediately deleted, no payment will be taken and you will be notified about this.
If you set up a standing order or direct debit with us, either to make a donation or play our lottery, we will ask for your bank account details. The standing order form or direct debit agreement will be sent to your bank and a copy stored securely for our records.
To process payments made through the website we use a third party called Stripe. Stripe may use, retain and disclose your personal information as set out in their privacy policy, including transferring your data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Where such transfer occurs, Stripe ensure your data is adequately protected under UK data protection.
Donations are also processed via the following platforms and details on how your information is processed can be found in their Privacy Policies:
JustGiving, who provide a platform for fundraising pages - privacy policy.
MuchLoved, who provide our in memory platform – MuchLoved Privacy Policy
Enthuse, who provide us with the platform to run fundraising events – security & data first
Information sharing and disclosure
We will not sell or swap your information with any third party.
We may share your information with our data processors. These are trusted partner organisations that work with us in connection with our charitable purposes and other entities that act as fundraisers for us, sell our products or provide us with information and marketing (subject to your communication preferences and our internal policies and procedures). All our trusted partners are required to comply with data protection laws and our high standards and are only allowed to process your information in strict compliance with our instructions. We will always make sure appropriate contracts and controls are in place and we regularly monitor all our partners to ensure their compliance.
Currently, parties we work with are:
NHS with whom we share information in order to give you the best possible care. We use EMIS, an electronic patient records system to store clinical information
Hotfoot who provide and help manage our website – Hotfoot Privacy Policy
MuchLoved who provide our in memory platform – MuchLoved Privacy Policy
Woods Valldata who help us run our lottery - Privacy Policy
Focus Group who look after our IT systems – Privacy Policy
Donorfy, who supply us with our supporter database software – Donorfy Privacy Notice
Enthuse, who provide us with the platform to run fundraising events – security & data first
We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are required to do so through a legal obligation (for example to the police or a government body) to enable us to enforce or apply our terms and conditions or rights under an agreement or to protect us, for example, in the case of suspected fraud or defamation.
We do not share your information with any other third party for any other purposes.
The accuracy of your information
We aim to ensure that all information we hold about you is accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. If any of the information we hold about you is inaccurate and either you advise us or we become otherwise aware, we will ensure it is amended and updated as soon as possible.
Under 16s
If you are aged 16 or under and would like to participate in an event, make a donation or get involved with us, we must ensure that we have your parent/guardian’s permission before receiving your personal information.
When we collect information about a child or young person we will make it clear why we are collecting this information and how it will be used.
Vulnerable circumstances policy
We recognise the importance of protecting our vulnerable supporters and follow the guidance issued by the Institute of Fundraising on treating donors fairly. We believe this helps to support our staff and fundraisers who come into contact with supporters in providing high-quality customer care, ensuring anyone donating to the Charity is in a position to make a free and informed decision. Access the Institute of Fundraising’s website for more guidance.
Storing your information
We take great care to ensure that your data is kept secure at all times. Data is only accessible to appropriately trained staff and volunteers.
Although most of the information we store and process stays within the UK some information may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area. This may occur if, for example, one of our trusted partners’ servers are located in a country outside the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK, however, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring your privacy continues to be protected as outlined in this privacy policy.
We will keep your information for as long as required to enable us to operate our services but we will not keep your information for any longer than is necessary. We will take into consideration our legal obligations and tax and accounting rules when determining how long we should retain your information. When we no longer need to retain your information we will ensure it is securely disposed of, at the appropriate time.
Our website
For all areas of our website which collect personal information we use a secure server. Although we cannot 100 per cent guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, we enforce strict procedures and security features to protect your information and prevent unauthorised access.
Our website contains links to other websites belonging to third parties and we sometimes choose to participate in social networking sites including but not limited to LinkedIn and Facebook. We may also include content from sites such as these on our website, however, we would advise that we do not have any control over the privacy practices of these other sites. You should make sure when you leave our site that you have read and understood that site’s privacy policy in addition to our own.
Cookies
We use Google Analytics, a service provided by Google. They gather anonymous data on how people are using this site and then provide us with visitor statistics, details of page views etc. You can think of it as being a bit like CCTV but one that automatically blurs your face so we can see what people have done, but not who. If you are anti-Google you can opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout (we’d prefer you didn’t though as this data is seriously helpful to us in improving our website).
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we may put on your computer or mobile device when you access our website. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of the website helping us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allow us to improve our site. For example, they will tell us whether you have visited our site before or whether you are a new visitor. Access the All About Cookies website - to find out more about cookies and how you can disable.
Third party website widgets
We also embed some page elements from trusted third parties so that we can provide you with features like Interactive Maps, Like Buttons and Videos. Collectively they make our website more interesting to you as a site visitor however most of these come with their own cookies. They are:
Facebook
YouTube
Vimeo
Google (Maps + Plus)
Changes to the policy
This policy replaces all previous versions and is correct as of June 2024. We will regularly review and update this Privacy and Data Protection Statement and will update, modify, add or remove sections at our discretion. Any changes will be notified to you either via e-mail or through an announcement on our website and your continued use of our website, any of our services and/or the continued provision of personal information after we have posted the changes to these terms will be taken to mean you agree with those changes.
Your rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, these are the right to:
The right to be informed | This encompasses our obligation to provide ‘fair processing information’, typically through this privacy notice. It emphasises the need for transparency over how we use personal data. |
The right of access | Individuals have the right to obtain: • confirmation that their data is being processed; • access to their personal data; and • other supplementary information – this largely corresponds to the information that is provided in this privacy notice. |
The right to rectification
| Individuals are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete. If we have disclosed the personal data in question to third parties, we will inform them of the rectification where possible. We will also inform the individuals about the third parties to whom the data has been disclosed where appropriate. |
The right to erasure
| Also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’. The broad principle underpinning this right is to enable an individual to request the deletion or removal of personal data whether there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. |
The right to restrict processing
| Individuals have a right to ‘block’ or suppress processing of personal data. When processing is restricted, we are permitted to store the personal data, but not further process it. We can retain just enough information about the individual to ensure that the restriction is respected in future. |
The right to data portability
| The right to data portability allows individuals to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services. It allows them to move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without hindrance to usability. |
The right to object | Individuals have the right to object to: • processing based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority (including profiling) • direct marketing (including profiling); and processing for purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics. |
Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling | The GDPR provides safeguards for individuals against the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention i.e. automated decisions. |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
email, call or write to us using the information provided below
let us have enough information to identify you
let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill), and
let us know the information to which your request relates
If you wish to find out more about these rights, or obtain a copy of the information we hold about you, please contact us by post at Hospice at Home West Cumbria
Therapy and Information Centre, 10 Finkle Street, Workington, Cumbria, CA14 2BB
How to Complain
If you have any concerns or complaints about how we are handling your data please do not hesitate to get in touch. You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office and can find information on how to do this at www.ico.org.uk.
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.
The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisor authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone [0303 123 1113].
Changes to this privacy notice
This privacy notice was last updated on 5th June 2024.
How to contact us
If you have any questions about our Privacy and Data Protection Statement please contact Hospice at Home West Cumbria Chief Executive Officer, Julie Monk, in the first instance at:
Hospice at Home West Cumbria
Therapy and Information Centre, 10 Finkle Street, Workington, Cumbria, CA14 2BB
Tel: 01900 873173
Email: info@hhwc.org.uk