Awel Homecare and Support is committed to protecting the information that we hold about you. This privacy notice describes how, when and why Awel Homecare and Support (we) may use your information, as well as your rights in relation to this information.

This privacy notice also gives you details around how others will use your personal data, for example, social workers, etc.

Data Protection Principles

In relation to your personal data, we will:

• Process it fairly, lawfully and in a clear, transparent way.
• Collect your data only for reasons that we find proper for the course of your employment in ways that have been explained to you.

• Only use it in the way that we have told you about.
• Ensure it is correct and up to date.
• Keep your data for only as long as we need it .
• Process it in a way that ensures it will not be used for anything that you are not aware of or have consented to (as appropriate), lost or destroyed.

Information we hold about you

Information we hold about you will often come from you directly this will include the following:

• Personal details (e.g. name, date of birth, or other identification);
• Contact details (e.g. phone number, email address, postal address and phone number).

If you do not provide personal data that we tell you is mandatory, it may mean that we are unable to provide you with the service.

What we use your information for 

We must have a legal basis to process your personal data. In most cases, the legal basis will be one of the following:

• To allow us to take actions that are necessary to provide you with the service;
• To allow us to comply with our legal obligations;
• To meet our legitimate interests, for example to understand how Service Users use our service and to develop and improve the service we currently provide;
• Where we have your consent to do so.

The table below sets out the purpose for which we use your personal data and our legal service for doing so:

What we use your information for	The legal basis for doing so
To provide, manage and personalise our services to you.	It is in our legitimate interests to ensure that our Service Users are provided with a high standard of service, to protect our business interests and the interests of our Service Users.
To manage complaints and to resolve queries.	Where necessary for the performance of our agreement or to take steps to enter an agreement with you. Where it is our legitimate interests to ensure that complaints are investigated, for example, so that our Service Users receive a high standard of service and so that we can prevent complaints from occurring in the future.
To check your instructions to us, and to analyse, assess and improve our service.  We may monitor or record any communication between you and us, including telephone calls.	Where it is in our legitimate interests to develop, and improve our service that our customers want to use.
To provide a good standard of care and to ensure employees have the right training.	To ensure that employees have the right training so that Service Users receive a high standard of care; to prevent complaints being made.

Who will we share your information with?

We will keep your information confidential but we may share it with third parties (who also have to keep it secure and confidential).

Retention of your data

We will keep your personal data for as long as we have a relationship with you. Once our relationship with you has come to an end (e.g. closure of the service provided) we will only retain your personal data for a period of time that is calculated depending on the type of personal data and the purposes for which we hold that information. 

We will only retain information that enables us to:

• Defend or bring any existing or potential legal claims;
• Deal with any future complaints regarding the service we have delivered.

The retention period is often linked to the amount of time available to bring a legal claim, which in many cases is six or seven years following closure of the service provided. We will retain your personal data after this time if we are required to do so to comply with the law, if there are outstanding claims or complaints that will reasonably require your personal data to be retained, or for regulatory or technical reasons. If we do, we will continue to make sure your privacy is protected.

Protecting your data

We are aware of the requirement to ensure your data is protected against accidental loss or disclosure, destruction and abuse. We have implemented processes to guard against such. E.g. Data Transfer Policy.

Where we share your data with third parties, we provide written instructions to them to ensure that your data are held securely and in line with GDPR requirements. Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your data.

Your rights

You have certain rights regarding your personal data, subject to local law. These include the following rights to:

• Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• Inform us of a correction of your personal data;
• Exercise your right to restrict our use of your personal date;
• You may transfer the data that we hold on you for your own purposes;
• Exercise your right to erase your personal data; or
• Object to particular ways in which we are using your personal data.

Your ability to exercise these rights will depend on a number of factors and in some instances, we will not be able to comply with the request e.g. because we have legitimate grounds for not doing so or where the right doesn’t apply to the particular data we hold on you.

Please contact us to update or correct information if it changes or if the personal data we hold about you is inaccurate.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about our privacy notice you can email us admin@awelhomecareandsupport.co.uk or call us on 01824 308010

If you would like more information on your rights, or wish to exercise them please contact us.

We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy. If, however, you believe that we have not been able to assist with your complaint or concern, you have the right to make a complaint to the data protection authority of the United Kingdom using their websites – https://ico.org.uk.

Changes to the privacy notice

A copy of this privacy notice can be requested from using the contact details set out above. We may modify or update this privacy notice from time to time.