Privacy policy

About the Organisation

The Chelsea and Westminster Staff Psychology Service is provided by Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL).

• Read more about us

We are dedicated to safeguarding and preserving your privacy when using our services. This privacy policy explains what happens to any personal data that you provide to us, or that we collect from you.

CNWL make decisions on what data is processed and how this will be done. This role is undertaken in accordance with the General Data Protection Regularly (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Changes to Terms

We may make changes to this privacy policy at any time. Changes will be posted here and are effective immediately. Regularly reviewing this page ensures that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.

How we use your Information?

Under the Data Protection Act, CNWL must protect any information collected from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to protect your data, and maintain strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.

All care professionals and others working with them in care services have a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and secure and only use it for the purposes of providing and improving the care they provide. Similarly, anyone who receives information from us has a legal duty to keep it confidential. 

What information do we collect?

Individual support

We collect personal and sensitive personal data when you complete your referral form, such as people's names and email addresses, GP and date of birth. The form you submit is encrypted and is emailed securely to the Staff Psychology Service admin email address (staffpsychchelwest@nhs.net) in order for them to process your referral. The information is not stored on the Chelsea and Westminster website or ChelwestMe staff app. Following referral, this form is uploaded to our secure electronic records clinical system (SystmOne). This information is only accessible to staff who are authorised to see it in the Staff Psychology Service.

Data Protection Law recognises that some categories of personal information are more sensitive, this is called special category data. Special category data includes information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

If you refer to our service, we may require information about your health in order to provide you with help and support and to ensure our service is inclusive.

We will only use this information for the purposes of providing you with a service in support of your health and for improving our service. Any information included in reports about improving the service is anonymised so no details that could identify you are included. 

Team support

We sometimes ask staff attending team or ward-based sessions to sign a register of attendance providing names and email addresses. The information does not form part of a health record. The information is kept on a private drive that is only accessible to staff who are authorised to see it in the Staff Psychology Service.

Information sharing

We will not give your information to any other third party (such as HR or your manager) without your permission. However, there may be exceptional circumstances where we are required to do so, such as if someone’s health and safety is at risk or if the law requires us to pass on information. 

If you would like us to, or if we are concerned about your or someone’s health or safety, we may share your information with health and care partners who are directly involved in your care. These may include: 

• local NHS hospitals
• your GP practice
• local voluntary and private care providers
• urgent and emergency care services, such as NHS 111 and the London Ambulance Service 

You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS, for example social care services. You may wish for your health and social care providers to receive or share some information about you. This may help them form a complete picture of your health needs and provide care and treatment that is most suited to your needs and preferences. They should only share information with your permission or where the law requires this. 

Our services are regulated by the Information Commissioner and we are regularly inspected by the Care Quality Commission, who have the responsibility to assess the quality of our services, and as part of that process the CQC may request access to your clinical records.

The legal basis for using your information

We will only use your personal information where we have your consent and because we need to fulfil a contracted service provided by the Trust or where we have a legal obligation to process your information.

Duration of Storage

We are required by the Department of Health to keep your records for a certain amount of time after you have finished receiving care from us. This amount of time depends upon the type of care you have received from us and helps us continue your care if you need to use our services again in the future. 

Any information that is shared should not be held for longer than necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. All organisations that we work with have been assessed to ensure they have appropriate records management procedures in place and guidelines for records retention.

Your Rights

The law gives you a number of rights in relation to what personal information is used by CNWL and how it is used. These rights allow you to ask us to:

• provide you with a copy of the personal information that we hold about you
• correct personal information about you, which you think is inaccurate
• stop using your personal information if you think it is wrong, until it is corrected
• transfer your personal information to another provider in a commonly used format
• review automated decision-making processes that have been used to make decisions about you

You have the right to withdraw consent from further processing your information however, according to our code of practice your information already held will be retained for a period. The right to erasure may not apply due to the nature of the services being provided and our basis in law for processing this data. 

If you require access to your records you will need to complete an application form and return to the Health Records Team with the relevant documents.

• Find out how to do this

If you still have any concerns about the way we have handled your data or are not happy with the Trust’s response to any data protection concern you have raised, you are entitled to contact the Data Protection Officer or Information Commissioner’s Office as below.

• The Data Protection Officer at cnwl.dpo@nhs.net
• The Information Commissioner's Office
  Wycliffe House
  Water Lane
  Wilmslow
  Cheshire
  SK9 5AF
• Telephone number: 0303 123 1113