At ISWP we are committed to protecting your privacy when you contact us, instruct us or contract with us. This Privacy Notice explains how we use information about you and the ways in which we protect your privacy.

Why do we collect and use personal information?

Personal information is information that is attributable to an individual and that may help to identify them. We collect and use information about your health and wellbeing, care needs, living situation, support networks and financial circumstances for the purposes of:-

• Providing advice
• Carrying out assessments
• Arranging or reviewing support
• Writing reports for court proceedings
• Advocating for you
• Helping to investigate concerns or complaints
• Helping with benefits claims
• Helping you to access health or social care funding

The information we collect is generally obtained directly from you or your authorised representative. We will explain when we also need to use information from third party sources such as records from care providers or assessments by other professionals. Information will only be collected for the purpose agreed with you or your representative and will not be used for any other reason.

How can you access the information we hold about you?

We will always share what we record about you with you, whenever we provide advice or a service, unless we are prevented from doing so for legal reasons.

You also have the right to ask for some or all of the information we hold about you, in both paper or in electronic records. When we receive a written request from you, we will normally give you access to everything we have recorded about you.

However, we will be unable to share recorded information which contains:-

• confidential information about other people
• information that we or another health or social care professional reasonably believes will cause serious harm to the physical or mental wellbeing of you or another person
• information which may prejudice an investigation if disclosed

How you can request correction of inaccurate information

You should let us know if you disagree with any recorded information we hold about you. We may not always be able to change or remove the information but we will correct agreed factual inaccuracies and may include your comments in our records.

How long will information be held?

Information will be held for a maximum of five years after the completion of work we do for you. After this, paper and electronic records containing sensitive personal information will be securely destroyed. Any records retained will be anonymised with identifying information removed.

How we keep information secure

We take appropriate steps to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Our security includes:

• encryption
• website and e-mail cyber-security protection and monitoring
• password protection
• sure storage and disposal of personal information

Who will we share your personal information with?

In most circumstances we will respect your right to confidentiality and will only share information with your consent. The law does not allow us to share your information without your permission, unless there is evidence that someone is at risk.

If we are worried about your physical safety or we feel that we need to take action to protect you from being harmed in other ways, we will discuss this with you. We will seek your permission to tell others about your situation. However, if we deem that the situation is so serious that we believe there is a significant risk of harm to yourself or others, we have a professional duty to share the relevant information with the appropriate authorities.

We will only share your personal details when it is unavoidable under our duty of care. Examples of circumstances when we would have to share information include:-

• if there are serious risks to the public, ourselves or other professionals
• to protect a child
• to protect adults who are thought to be at risk
• for the detection and prevention of crime or fraudulent activity

There may be rare occasions when the risk to you or others is so great that we need to share the information straight away. We will record the information we have shared and our reasons for doing so.

For further information on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) please visit the ICO website.

For further details about anything covered in this Privacy Statement, please contact one of ISWP’s Practitioners directly.