Our Policies

Main objective of collecting personal and sensitive information of our service users is to provide them with safe and quality mental health treatment whilst under our care. As a service user we collect information (details are mentioned further in the document-Personal Information we hold about you) to assist in providing mental health care to you.

This information is collected by means of GP referral, on admission of our services, telephone call to us, Electronic Referral, your email to us, Phone enquiries to CMHC health professionals and staff, via referral to us by our staff members and associates and any other person or organisation related e.g. schools.

Our legal basis for processing of sensitive data is under GDPR Article 9(2)(h)-Management of health and under GDPR Article 6(1)(c) –Legal Obligation for general processing (non-sensitive e.g. contact details).

We will collect information about employees’ or potential employees’ work history, contact details referees and any other information they submit in their job application. We collect similar information about contractors, vendors, suppliers and health professionals who provide services to CMHC’s mental health services and about students and volunteers that attend our facilities. All employees, contractors and health professionals are required to have DBS clearance.

To perform our obligations as an employer, contractor and as required by English law, CMHC collets, uses and discloses personal information. Our legal basis for processing of employee and contactor personal data by our human resource department is under GDPR Article6(1)(b)-contract and under legal basis GDPR Article 9(2)(b) for the processing of sensitive data concerning employees. The processing of Employee personal data by our finance department for the purpose of payroll is done under the legal basis of GDPR Article 6 (1)(c) –Legal obligation.

To assist the suitability for employment or undertaking work experience or clinical placement or providing relevant assistance as the case may be, CMHC collect personal information about job applicants, students and volunteers.

Other purposes which may use personal information about those individuals include to contact them, for insurance purposes and to satisfy our legal obligations. Our legal basis for collection of this data is under GDPR Article 6(1)(b) – contract.

CMHC collects personal information about contractors suppliers and health professionals that provide services to Child Mental Health Clinic mental health services for the primary purpose of assessing and engaging their services or expertise and for other purposes where legally required. Our legal basis for processing is Under GDPR Article 6(1)(b) – Contract.

When you use our website, we do not attempt to identify you or we do not store your personal information. We only collect and store your personal information if you choose to provide this to us via online form or by email, for example through our contacts page. Please refer to our website privacy policy for more detailed information.

We use third party practice management software hosted edition to store the information. The company servers are provided by IOMART and are hosted in highly-secure UK data centres which are ISO9001 and ISO27001 certified. Furthermore, all data is encrypted (even when in transit) and is strong-password protected on the servers. For more information, please contact us at above mentioned contact.

All clinicians including admin accessing your information need to log on to a computer and then log on to Practice Management Software.

We will not divulge your record to anyone without your consent. Some patients prefer for a family member or friend to act on their behalf, if you wish for someone else to act on your behalf please let us know and we will ensure this is documented on your record, you can withdraw this consent at any time but you must let us know if you no longer wish for us to discuss your health with the nominated person.

We store personal details such as Patient name, their parent’s contact details (in case of young person under 18), address, and date of birth, school information as well as the GP details. We also store

From a practical point of view we could not deliver a safe service to you without storing your data. Our records may include relevant information that you have told us, or information provided on your behalf by relatives or GP or those who care for you and know you well, or from health professionals and other staff directly involved in your care and treatment. Our records may be held on paper or in a computer system.

The storing and recording of information is important to deliver safe care.

This privacy notice tells you about information we collect and hold about you, what we do with it, how we will look after it and who we might share it with. It covers information we collect directly from you or receive from other individuals or organisations.

This notice does not provide exhaustive detail. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to the address below.

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last reviewed in April 2018.

The Clinic will not share personal identifiable data and or other confidential data about patients to support the planning of care services, without seeking explicit patient/parent consent to do this.

The Practice may share data about patients in a non-personal format (either anonymised* or pseudonymised**) in order to support the planning of Child Mental Health Clinic care services. This data will only be used for health planning purposes and not for any other purposes (such as commercial, insurance or marketing purposes). Sharing of such data will be managed in accordance to a formal sharing arrangement and under tight Information Governance controls’.

*Anonymisation: is the process of rendering data into a form which does not identify individuals or makes the risk of re-identification sufficiently low in a particular context that does not constitute personal data.

**Pseudonymised: Pseudonymised data are data in which individuals are disguised by using a unique identifier that does not reveal their ‘real world’ identity. Provided the organisation holding the pseudonymised data does not have access to the key to re-identify the subjects, such data are effectively anonymous and does not constitute personal data.

Some of the time when the Child Mental Health Clinic is commissioning new services or working out how effectively we deliver mental healthcare to you we use your data to answer questions such as

Most of this work can be done within the Child Mental Health Clinic by their Data Manager. It requires your data to be joined up (linking mental health data to other softwares providing analysis) but analysts do not see personal identifiers such as your name, date of birth or NHS Number.

Sometimes this work is done outside the Chiled Mental Health Clinic. We actively use third party software to assist in mental health assessments. E,g. we use Conner’s online questionnaire and consider their results in ADHD assessment.

You can request us to stop your data being used in such analyses. If you do this we will not pass any of your information onto the analysing partner/software we will also explain the consequences of this decision to you.

Sharing your data for non-direct care

We can use the code (pseudonym) to link your records together to understand your mental healthcare journey.

We may share your records to mental health research organisations.

However, this data may be used for various purposes such as research. Organisations wishing to access this data must go through a formal process and will not receive personal identifiers such as your name, address or date of birth.

Your explicit consent would be taken before sharing your data.

You can object to your data being used in such analyses and we will record it in our information system.

If you object to your clinical data being shared out by Child Mental Health Clinic then please tell us and we will not share your data.

There are many situations when we will share data about relevant aspects of your care with other clinicians. For example we may share data about you

We can also share some aspects of your record (e.g.lists of medical problems, medications, allergies, investigation results) with the wider local community. This includes

In the majority of cases you will be asked for permission to view your clinical record by the person you are talking to. If for some reason this is not the case the clinician must record the reason this was not done e.g. in an emergency or while talking your GP perhaps about a possible admission. This data will comes directly from one of Child Mental Health Clinic staff/associates and is not stored anywhere else.

We may share to your Local Care Teams some of your clinical information. These teams look after patients in the community with long term mental health conditions such as Depression. as well as patients who are at risk of admission. If they need access to your GP record for example to safely prescribe medication or to check lab results to monitor the medication they are giving you they will discuss this with you when you are referred. At other times they will use a distillation of key information from your GP records, community records and hospital records.

If you object to your clinical data being shared for direct (clinical) care then please tell us and we will record this on your record and will not share your information for this purpose, we will also explain the consequences of this decision to you.

You may want your mental health information held about you with others for purposes other than your care. This could include with schools, insurance companies, medical report for a mortgage, life insurance, for immigration purposes, with a solicitor representing you in a personal injury claim.

In such cases this will only be done with your signed and explicit consent.

There are a very few cases where we must share your data in the public interest. Such circumstances include

Generally only disclosures in which an overriding patient and public interest outweighs the duty of confidentiality- on an exceptional case by case basis

The two main deliverables of the Software are

The key medical data that will be made available to view via the ClinicOffice will be

Many people think their Record is available to all healthcare professionals involved in their care; but this is not generally the case. It is very common that each clinician you see keeps a separate electronic record about you. This can mean important information may not be communicated between health services as well as it could be.

Making your record available in this way is designed to ensure that the healthcare professionals looking after you have the most relevant up to date information to enable them to provide you with the most appropriate care.

It may also mean that you

This is done in your best interests to provide care.

By enabling 24/7 access to view key medical information when treating patients clinical staff will

The latest generation of Practice Management software provided by Pioneer Software Ltd based in Boston Lincolnshire. You can visit their website at https://pioneersoftware.co.uk

This allows clinical staff items within a patient’s record in ‘real-time’. For example, this could prove vital when treating patients during periods when GP practices are closed. The ability to view patient’s records will be via a secure online portal

Clinical audit can provide direct benefit to individuals ensuring that they are getting high quality and effective care and indirect benefit to the population as a whole. Where identifiable data is needed for clinical audit purposes outside of your care team, we will always seek explicit consent to do so.

Researchers can provide direct benefit to individuals who take part in medical trials and indirect benefit to the population as a whole. Service user records can also be used to identify people to invite them to take part in clinical trials, other interventional studies or studies purely using information from medical records. Where identifiable data is needed for research, service users will be approached by the organisation where treatment was received, to see if they wish to participate in research studies. Your consent will be obtained by the organisation holding your records before identifiable information about you is disclosed for any research.

Sometimes research can be undertaken using information that does not identify you. The law does not require us to seek your consent in this case, but the organisation holding your information will make notices available on the premises and on the website about any research projects that are undertaken.

If you do not wish your information to be used for research, whether identifiable or non-identifiable, please let us know. We will record it and not provide your information to any research project.

The Child Mental Health Clinic may enter into contract to provide Information Technology (IT) services for us. These include holding and processing data including patient information on our behalf. These services are subject to the same legal rules and conditions for keeping personal information confidential and secure. We are responsible for making sure that staff in those organisations are appropriately trained, that procedures are in place to keep information secure and protect privacy.

We will not otherwise share, sell or distribute any of your personal information to any third party (other person or organisation) without your consent, unless required by law. Data collected will not be sent to countries where the laws do not protect your privacy to the same extent as the law in the UK, unless rigorous checks on the security and confidentiality of that data are carried out in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act (Principle 8).