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Confidentiality and Data Protection

Confidentiality and Consent

Consent

Before accessing our services, we need to ensure that we get your explicit and informed consent for the use of your data, as a result, we request that you read the following before clicking consent and submitting your request.

  • Test kits and requests for condoms:

Your demographic details are collected so that we can process your request for a test kit or condoms to be posted to you. At this stage your data is not used for anything else. If you order a test kit, we will ask you to provide a mobile number and/or email address so that we may contact you with your test results. 

  • Test Results:

If you post a test kit back to be tested, in addition to your demographic details, which you supply, we will also record your test result and any subsequent treatment. 

  • Social Media:

If you contact us privately through our service Social Media channels, we may keep copies of conversations, for training and monitoring purposes, for a short period of time.

Only staff who have an authorised reason, in order to provide a service to you will have access to your data and will only access it as and when they are providing a service to you; this includes both clinical and administrative staff within the Sexual Health Service.

In addition to Solent NHS Trust Employees, the following Data Processors (contracted organisations) will also have access to your data;

If you are requesting a test kit or have submitted a test kit then your data will be processed on our behalf by The Doctors Laboratory. They are legally contracted to only use your data for the purpose of providing condoms, posting test kits or testing kits submitted. They will store your data for an appropriate amount of time, so as to process your request and to respond to queries or complaints. Only authorised staff will have access to your data at this time.

We will ask you to provide a mobile number and/or email address so that we may contact you with your test results. 

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provide hosting and maintenance  support to Solent NHS Trust, for the maintenance of our “Lets Talk About It” website, they will not have access to the content of Personally Identifiable Data.

Your data will be stored on the following systems, depending on the service you have requested;

  • Requests for Test Kits and the processing of test results, undertaken by The Doctors Laboratory are stored on their clinical system. In addition to this the data you enter on the eForm application for test kits and/or condoms, are kept on Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust’s secure internal network
  • Negative test results and requests for Condoms will be stored by Solent NHS Trust on either restricted encrypted network drives or an encrypted email system, known as NHSMail
  • Positive test results and Insufficient test results will be stored by Solent NHS Trust on our clinical patient system, known as Inform and NHSMail.
  • Live Chat, is stored for a 48 hour period on Live Chat Helper, before being deleted
  • Social Media private conversations (Facebook messenger, Twitter direct message, Instagram direct messages) are stored on the social media site for up to one week, before being deleted.
  • All clinical information and online bookings will be stored by Solent NHS Trust on our clinical patient system, known as Inform.

NHSMail’s Privacy Notice 

Facebook Messenger’s Privacy Notice 

Twitter's Privacy Policy

Instagram's Data Policy

Solent NHS Trust will only keep data for the minimum amount of time to process and deliver a service to you and in line with national retention periods, for Health and Social Care;

  • Requests for Test Kits are only kept by The Doctors Laboratory while they process your order and this information is then deleted. The data stored on the eForm by Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust is only kept for 12 months.
  • Test results are only kept by The Doctors Laboratory while they process your request, at which point they will pass your results on to Solent NHS Trust and delete the data held by them. The length of time that Solent NHS Trust keep these results for, will depend on the outcome of the test. If the test is negative then this will only be kept for 2 years, allowing for clinical comparison should you have future tests. If the test is positive or insufficient, this will be kept for 8 years, following the conclusion of treatment.
  • Requests for condoms are stored on the eForm by Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust for 12 months. Solent NHS Trust will keep this data on a secure network for 2 years.
  • Live Chat data is kept for 6 months allowing for verification of information, and then anonymised and transcripts are stored for 2 years on a secure network.
  • Social Media data is kept for 6 months allowing for verification of information, and then anonymised and conversations are stored for 2 years on a secure network.

By registering for a Personal Health Record, you agree to:

  • Use password-protected phones and email accounts.
  • Use your own private mobile number.
  • Use your own private email address that is not shared or accessible by anyone else.
  • To contact the service immediately if you feel your PHR account has been accessed by anyone other than yourself so that access to the PHR can be disabled.
  • Understand the risk of disclosure of private and sensitive information if the above is not adhered to.

We recommend using a private, not public or shared computers or devices, to register and use your PHR, and where this is not possible to follow good practice to protect your information such as:

  • Not saving your login information on a shared device
  • Not leaving a device unattended with sensitive information on the screen
  • Disable any feature that store passwords or login information
  • Delete browsing history when finished using the shared device.

For further information on the use of your data and your rights, please visit our Internet Site and in particular the “Your Information, Your Rights”

If you do not wish to consent to your data being used as advised above, you do have other options. If you would like to attend one of your Sexual Health Clinic’s in person, your personal data will only be stored on our Inform System. 

If you have consented to the use of your information as mentioned above, you do have this right, but certain information may need to retain for legal reasons.

  • If you request a test kit please be advised that these requests cannot be cancelled once an order has been placed, however as outlined above your data will not be retained.
  • If a test result has been processed, we are legally required to store the results, as outlined above.
  • If you request condoms, please be advised that these requests are processed within 1 to 10 days and it may not be possible to cancel your order.

As a service, we feel that keeping your data and information confidential and secure is extremely important. When you use the service the information in your notes are stored securely on our computer system and are strictly confidential. It can sometimes be useful and beneficial to your health to share your records with your GP but we will not do this without your permission to do so.

As a service, we feel that keeping your data and information confidential and secure is extremely important. When you use the service the information in your notes are stored securely on our computer system and are strictly confidential. It can sometimes be useful and beneficial to your health to share your records with your GP but we will not do this without your permission to do so.

If you're 13 to 15 years old, you have the same rights to confidentiality as an adult. This means that we won't tell your parents, or anyone else without your permission.

For any contact we send you, we will always ask you whether you are happy for us to send a text or send letters to your home address, and in some cases - your GP. For this reason it is important for us to have accurate contact details for you.

There are certain situations where we, as a service, may need to share your confidential information. We would always discuss this with you first and this will only happen if we are concerned that you or someone else are at serious risk of harm.

Your notes may be accessed by a health care professional to ensure your partner(s) have been treated, but your confidentiality will be maintained.

Solent NHS Trust uses Google Analytics cookies on its websites, which allow us to collect information such as the browser, operating system and screen resolution used, the pages you visit on our website, an anonymised version of your IP address, and your location (country only).

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

The anonymous information collected is sent to Google so that we can use their analytics reporting tools. We do not send personally identifiable information to Google. For more information on how Google uses the data we send them, please see here.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

If you have any concerns or queries regarding your confidentiality or the use of your data, please contact our sexual health team on snhs.sexualhealthpromotion@nhs.net or our Information Governance Team on InformationGovernanceTeam@solent.nhs.uk

 

There may be times when we share anonymised patient information as case studies, to provide quality oversight and learning both within the Trust and with our commissioning colleagues.

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