Data Protection
What does this mean?
At Healthwatch Trafford, we collect as much information as we can about health and social care services in the area. This can be from people speaking to us and giving feedback, from data we have collected from our partners and services, from surveys and polls or from research. We collect experiences, data, opinions and whatever we can to give us a picture of the state of care for residents and users of services in Trafford. This is known as performance monitoring.
Why do we collect information?
We do this so that we can see where services are working well and where they need to improve. By using this information to look for patterns or themes, we can spot where problems lie and find ways of addressing them so that services can improve. If for example we have a number of people making similar complaints or observations about a certain service or aspect of their care, we can use that to go to the care provider and find ways to address the problem, improving the experience of the service in the future.
How do we keep this information safe?
This means we have information on services and peoples personal details which need to be confidential and kept secure. With this in mind, we take precautions to keep this data safe. Any sensitive or personally identifiable information that is in paper form is kept locked away where only staff members have access to the key. This is in a building with 24 hour security and which requires a pass to gain access to the floor. For electronic information, this is kept encrypted on our online storage with access only available to our staff members with their specific logins. We use antivirus and firewall software which is always updated to give extra security.
Will we share this information?
When data is to be shared with anyone outside the organisation, whether it be made public, with partners and stakeholders or whoever, it is always anonymised unless we have been given explicit permission to share by the person that gave us it. This means that we strip all information that could identify a person from the information. We do this to protect the identity and privacy of those who have shared experiences with us and we would never pass any of this information unless we are authorised to do so. This includes names, contact details, date of birth or any equalities information that may have been supplied.
What information do we need from you?
We are happy for people to come to us anonymously to share their experience and their concerns, opinions etc. are just as important to us. We only ask for contact information so we can contact you in the future (with your permission), so we can identify the types of stories that different groups in the community are telling us. We also collect other monitoring information such as age, ethnic background, gender etc. so that we can make sure we are reflecting all parts of the Trafford community and to identify any patterns or themes that might exist in their treatment. You do not have to supply any of this information if you do not feel comfortable doing so.
What do we do with the information?
When we identify areas of interest, such as where we spot a pattern or theme around a service (or services) we can;
- Investigate further – perhaps by using surveys, focus groups, mystery shopper etc.
- Conduct an Enter & View visit
- Approach the service provider themselves
- Approach service commissioners
- Report the information to a regulatory body such as the CQC, GMC etc.
- Report the information to Healthwatch England
By doing the above (or any combination of) we can help change services for the better for those that use them.
