Easy read Privacy Notice

Easy Read Privacy Notice

This notice explains why the hospital collects information about you, how we keep it safe and private, and how we may use that information.

Why do we collect information about you?

The health professionals you see at hospital, which includes doctors and nurses, have to keep a record about your health and any treatment that you need to have. This is called your hospital record and we need to keep this information to look after you when you are under our care.

What do we record?

We keep a record of every time that you see someone at the hospital. We keep a record of:

Your name, address, and information about the people who look after you – for example your carers
Your home telephone and mobile number and your email address if you give this to us.
Details about your health which could include any previous times you have been under our care and needed to visit a doctor or nurse at the hospital.
Details of the appointments you come to or whenever you stay in hospital and you see our health professionals.
Any tests that you have had such as an x-ray or a blood test.
Any medicines you need to have to keep you well.

How we keep your information safe and private?

Your hospital record is kept on a secure computer system. Only health professionals and the admin staff who help them can look at your information. It is very difficult for anybody who isn’t allowed to look at your record to do so - we have strong security systems on all our computers.

If you have a mobile phone or an email address we will only use that to contact you when we need to talk to you about your health, for example to remind you about an appointment that you might have to see the health professionals. If you don’t want us to text you anything at all then just tell us and we will make sure that doesn’t happen.

All your information is very private and we won’t tell anyone else about it unless they are also looking after you or trying to make you better - and only then if they need to know about it.

If the health professional you see at the hospital is not sure what’s wrong with you, they may talk to another health professional about you to find out what’s making you feel unwell.

Sometimes we also have to tell other people about information in your hospital record. This may be because it’s the law or to keep you safe from harm. Also, sometimes we may give your information to the Police to protect you from harm.

If you’re unwell and that illness could be spread to all your friends or family, then we might need to let the right people know so that they can try to make sure that no one else catches that illness as well. Whenever we can, we would always try to tell you if we were going to tell someone else about you and your hospital record.