Privacy Policy

DATA PROTECTION AND SUBJECT ACCESS 2018

This policy overrides our previous data protection policy and is compliant with the GDPR 2018

The purpose of this policy is to protect clients and staff members from breaches of personal information collected by and stored by SSA Quality Care.

The policy describes how we collect and use personal information about you in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.

This policy applies to: 

• All people who access our website;
• All of our clients and their family members
• Former clients and their families 
• People making enquiries about our service
• job applicants and current and former employees;
• third parties with whom we share information

Aim of policy

To provide information on how we collect and process personal and sensitive data. Please contact us if you have any questions or would like more information.

How to Contact Us

We can always be contacted by email or phone or by completing our online enquiry form for details please refer to our contact us page.

Who we are

SSA Quality Care is an independently owned and operated business. We are registered with Companies House and our company number is 05626573 our VAT number is 872910216

Policy

We will comply with data protection law which states that any personal information we hold about individuals must be:

• Used in line with current legislation.
• Collected only for the reasons that we have explained to you and will not be used for any other purpose.
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
• Accurate and kept up to date.
• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
• Stored securely.

We will only use personal information for the purpose for which it has been collected. If we think that we will need to use personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will contact the individual or organisation to whom this relates to and we will explain the legal basis which will allow us to use data in this manner.

In certain circumstances we may need to process personal information without prior knowledge or consent, but we will only do so where this is required or permitted by law.

Information that falls into the “Special categories” of data

We also collect data which falls into this category including:

Racial or ethnic origin, Political opinions, Religious belief or similar (philosophical belief*)  Trade union membership, Physical/mental health or condition, Sexual life or (sexual orientation), Commission or allegation of an offence, Proceedings for any offence, disposal of proceedings or sentence, Genetic data,  Biometric data

Clients and their families

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about clients and their families or named contacts, prospective and former clients

• Date of birth, gender, marital status and any other information which may be relevant in order to provide the service.
• information concerning health and relevant medical information

We need to collect and process this information so that we may provide a social care service. The collection and processing of such data is essential for the proper functioning of our activities and has a lawful basis for the provision of our service in a social care context. If consent to collect and process certain types of personal data including any data required relating to family or relevant others/friends is withheld we may be unable to provide our services. As such, we will require such consent to collect and process such data in order to provide the services to clients and their families.

Job Applicants

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about from job applicants:

• Personal contact details such as name, title, address, telephone numbers, and email address    
• Date of birth, gender and marital status
• Their IP address
• Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information
• Recruitment information, right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process
• Employment records (including job titles, full work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships)

We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information in order to meet our obligations under employment law:

• Information about the applicants race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
• Trade union membership
• Information about health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
• Information about criminal convictions and offences

The reason that we need to collect this information is to:

• Allow us to enter into an employment contract with an applicant and to help us to make a recruitment decision 
• It is a requirement of our industry regulator
• It is in the best interest of our clients that our recruitment processes are robust
• For the purpose of contacting and updating individuals and organisations about changes to our service
• For the purpose of our business development

Applicants who fail to provide certain information when requested, will not be considered for employment.

Employees

Following successful recruitment we may also collect, store, and use the following additional categories of personal information about employees:

• Preferred contact and emergency contact information 
• National Insurance number, bank account details, payroll records and tax status information
• Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information
• Start date
• Copy of driving licence
• Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships)
• Performance information, disciplinary and grievance informat
• Information about employee access rights to company nformation and communications systems
• Photographs of employee’s which we have to keep a personnel file .

Below are some examples of the purposes for which we collect data but it is not an exhaustive list:

• Matching appropriate staff with clients
• Making a recruitment decision
• Managing payroll including tax deductions and National Insurance contributions
• Making certain benefits available and liaising with employee  pension providers
• Administration of the employment contract, business management and planning, including accounting and auditing
• Conducting performance reviews and appraisals
• Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions, education, training and development
• Managing sickness absence
• Safeguarding of network and information security, including the prevention of  unauthorised access to computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution

We may also collect and process the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information in order to meet our obligations under employment law:

• Information about race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
• Trade union membership
• Information about health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records
• Information about criminal convictions and offences

Sensitive information is used for the following:

• leaves of absence, including sickness absence or personal/family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.
• We will use information about employee physical and/or mental health, or disability status, to ensure health and safety in the workplace and to assess individual fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits.
• We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

If employees fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with them or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations

Suppliers & Third Parties

Where we are engaged in a business or referral relationship with other organisations and third parties we will maintain a record of their contact details for the purposes of:

• Maintaining professional contact and informing of the services which we offer including any promotions, training or events that we may be responsible for organising.

We collect personal information directly from a job applicant through the application and recruitment process, through enquiries via our website and sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.

How we store data

We store data securely in fireproof lockable storage systems and also backup data to secure external servers.

How long we keep data

We will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Data from Clients & clients’ families

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations we have to retain your personal data for a period of three (3) yearsfrom the date of last entry. Once this period has expired, all of your personal data will be permanently deleted.

Data from Job Applicants

If an application is successful, the retention of personal information will be governed by the retention timescales applicable to our employees.

If an application is unsuccessful, to comply with our legal obligations we may retain personal information for up to six (6)months after we have notified the applicant of the outcome of our recruitment decision unless the applicant has given us their permission to retain their data for longer.

Data from Employees

To comply with our legal obligations we have to retain the majority of employee records for six (6) yearsfrom the date that employment with us ends.

Data from Suppliers & Third Parties

We keep data for as long as there is an ongoing working relationship with our organisation. Once the relationship has ended, all personal data will be permanently deleted.

Who has Access to Data

Relevant information may be shared with:

• Any relevant members of our staff who will need to know certain facts in order to provide our services to you our clients. We will only share relevant information in order that our employees can carry out their job;
• Our office based staff who are involved in the management and administration of the care services which clients and their families are receiving;
• Other health and/or social care professionals and emergency services where appropriate.

Job Applicants

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers 

Employees

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers. We will only share your data where required to do so by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

We will not, transfer data outside of the European Economic Area. 

Privacy Notice

This notice explains what data we will be gathering about clients, employees and applicants and why we need it, what it will be used for, how long it will be kept, how it will be kept safe, and what rights the individual has with regards to their own data.

The notice is given to all clients at the commencement of the service and to all job applicants and employees.

For the purpose of clarification we will hereby refer to all clients and their families, job applicants and employed staff and all other third parties for whom we gather and process personal information as “data subjects”

Data subject responsibility to Inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about all data subjects is accurate and current. Data subjects must keep us informed if their personal information changes.

Subject access rights

Because of the data we hold subject access rights in respect of that personal data are set out here:

• Right to Access – this means that data subjects can ask us for a copy of all personal data we hold about them. This enables the data subject to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about them and to check that we are lawfully processing it. We will 
• Correction Right – if a data subject believes that any of the information we hold about them is incorrect or out of date, they have the right to correct such information by providing us with the correct up to date information. In addition, they can ask us to delete the incorrect or out of date information and we will be happy to do so unless we are prevented from doing so by law or regulation.
• Right to be Forgotten – this enables a data subject to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. However, where we are obliged to keep personal data because of a regulatory or legal requirement, we will not be able to delete the data and must continue to retain it.
• Right to Restrict Processing – in some limited circumstances data subjects have the right to restrict the processing of their data.
• Right of Objection to Processing – data subjects have the right to object to us using their data for direct marketing purposes and profiling.
• Data breach. We will report any data or security breaches to the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of any such breach.
• Right to Complain If data subjects have any concerns about our handling of their personal data, they have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) by visiting https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephoning the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy

Changes to this policy

We reserve the right to update this policy at any time, and we will provide data subjects a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates.

SSA Quality Care 14thMay 2018