Privacy notices for employees, workers, contractors and consultants


What is the purpose of this document?

Ramsay Health Care UK is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

It applies to all employees, workers, contractors and consultants.

Ramsay Health Care UK is a "controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This notice applies to current and former employees, workers, contractors and consultants. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide an updated copy of this notice on our webpage.

It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we may use such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.

 

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. Accordingly, the personal information we hold about you must be:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  4. Accurate and kept up to date.
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  6. Kept securely.

 

The kind of information we hold about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

There are certain types of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a person's health, sexual orientation or information about criminal convictions.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

We may also collect, store and use the following more sensitive types of personal information:

 

How is your personal information collected?

We may collect personal information about employees, workers and contactors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers.

If you are a consultant that is engaged with us under our Facility Rules we may collect data directly from you through the accreditation process.

We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.

 

How we will use information about you

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
  2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
  3. Where it is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

  1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests).
  2. Where it is needed in the public interest.
  3. Where we would need your consent to provide services where another lawful basis does not exist.

 

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We rely on the categories of information in the list above primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you, and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

The situations in which we may process your personal information are listed below.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

 

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

 

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

 

How we use and collect particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information, such as information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, criminal convictions or trade union membership, require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We have in place appropriate policies and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

  1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
  2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment.
  3. Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme.
  4. Where it is necessary to protect you or another person from harm.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

 

Situations in which we will use your sensitive personal information

In general, we will not process particularly sensitive personal information about you unless it is necessary for performing or exercising obligations or rights in connection with employment. On rare occasions, there may be other reasons for processing, such as it is in the public interest to do so. The situations in which we will process your particularly sensitive personal information are listed below. We have indicated the purpose or purposes for which we are processing or will process your more sensitive personal information.

 

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your permission to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If the information being processed is owed a duty of confidentiality, then we would seek your permission prior to use.

 

Information about criminal convictions

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our internal policies.

We may hold information about past criminal convictions.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so in order to complete appropriate risk assessment. The level of check will be determined by the type of role you are engaged in. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us.

 

Data sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may transfer your personal information outside the UK.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

 

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

 

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

"Third parties" includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services.

 

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

 

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We may share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data and for optimising your relationship with the organisation. Please note that if we share your personal information we will ensure that there is a robust data sharing agreement in place which specifies that the data can only be used for the stated purpose.

 

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. If we restructure or sell our business or its assets, or we are involved in mergers or acquisitions of other organisations;

We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. This may include making returns to HMRC, disclosures to stock exchange regulators and disclosures to shareholders such as directors' remuneration reporting requirements

 

Transferring information outside the UK

We may transfer the personal information we collect about you to the EU or to Australia in order to perform our contract with you. There are not adequacy regulations in respect of Australia. This means that Australia is not deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information.

However, to ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put in place the following appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects UK law on data protection: Standard Contractual Clauses will be used for any transfer of personal data to Australia.

 

Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available on the intranet.

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have contractually agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

 

Data retention

In line with our internal record management policies, we will retain/store your employee record for as long as necessary to provide the services set out in this Privacy Notice. We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

The information we collect and hold about you is held securely within the United Kingdom and stored in either paper format or held on our secure electronic servers.

This is to ensure that information is properly managed and is available when there is a justified need for that information, including to support the delivery and management of patient care and clinical audits, as well as our legitimate interests, and to meet legal requirements.

Records that have completed the specified retention period will be reviewed and if retention no longer needed, will be securely destroyed in line with our policies.

If we will no longer be offering services, you will be notified of this change and you will be provided further information on the secure transfer of your record to a new provider.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

 

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact your HR Coordinator.

 

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is repetitive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances or if your request is unfounded.

 

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

 

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent under Data Protection legislation to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact your HR Coordinator. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

 

Data protection officer

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please complete our online form and your request will be directed to the correct department for review. You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) with respect to data protection issues.

 

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Ramsay’s DPO at dataprotection.offifcer@ramsayhealth.co.uk.

Content Last Reviewed:23.05.22