Privacy policy

The NHS and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the privacy of individuals using this website. This Privacy Notice discloses the practices for www.guysandstthomasprivatehealthcare.co.uk. It applies solely to this website.

1. Introduction

Guy’s and St Thomas’ Private Healthcare (as part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust) is committed to protecting your personal information. We take great care to protect and respect the rights of individuals in relation to their personal data. This privacy notice explains how and why we use your personal data to ensure you remain informed and in control of your personal information.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was implemented in May 2018, provides new guidance and transparency on the processing of personal data and gives more rights to individuals and more obligations to organisations holding personal data.

This privacy notice explains specifically what information we collect and how your personal data will be used. The new regulation requires us to gain your consent to allow us to contact you. This means you have a choice as to whether you wish to receive messages from us. You also have the right to withdraw your personal information at any point. However, there may be circumstances when this is not possible as we may need to comply with our legal obligations.

2. What information we collect

Guy’s and St Thomas’ Private Healthcare collects information from visitors to this website (www.guysandstthomasprivatehealthcare.co.uk) and holds personal information such as:

• visitor usage data from server log files
• e-mail information and contact details when you send an online enquiry form
• patient contact details and health information when you send an online enquiry for our assisted conception service
• patient details and health information on GP referral forms
• patient testimonials, photos and videos of patients

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.

We do not use cookies to collect personal information about you or to identify individual users.

The Trust’s Privacy Policy will apply whenever you provide any personal information, except by law, where Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust can pass on personal data without consent, for example, for the purpose to prevent and detect crime. In this instance, processing of the individual’s personal data is necessary to comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal data or share with third parties.

3. How we use your information

3.1. Visitors to our website

Server log files allow us to record visitor usage of the site. Guy’s and St Thomas’ Private Healthcare may collate this type of information in order to make changes to the site and its content – based on the way visitors interact with it. Log files do not contain any personal information.

We use Google Analytics, a third party service, to collect standard internet log information and details about visitor behaviour patterns. For example, this includes numbers of visitors to various parts of the site, popular pages and what devices visitors are using to access the site.

3.2. Email information and contact details from online enquiry forms

When you click on a link to send an email to us or you are asked to submit an online enquiry form with details such as your name, email address and telephone number, this data is sent by our server as an email message and is not logged by any other system.

Online enquiry forms include a statement giving your consent for us to contact you. You must tick the box in order to submit the form. This ‘opt in’ ensures that you give your consent for us to hold your data to enable us to fulfil your enquiry efficiently and give you the information you need. We will not e-mail or contact you unless you have given us your consent.

3.3 Fertility online enquiry form and health information

You will be asked to provide contact details and health information when you complete the online enquiry form for our fertility service. This enables us to deal with your enquiry efficiently and may facilitate the consultation and treatment process.

The Assisted Conception Unit (ACU) stores information separately to any NHS health record about you and your partner with regard to any IVF treatment we provide you. The ACU is legally obliged to maintain any patient information for 30 years as per the HFE Act 1990 (as amended). Your information is stored in a secure area with controlled access to it.

Under the HFE Act 1990 (as amended) IVF clinics are required to maintain information about you and your partner having IVF treatment. The ACU has a legal requirement to submit this information to the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority). When you start treatment with us, you will be asked to opt-in to share your information, including with your GP, other health professionals involved in your care and for audit purposes. You can consent not to share your information with anyone. However, there are exceptions to this, including processing of data to fulfil the Trust’s and HFEA legal obligations and in a medical emergency.

3.4 GP/ health professional referral form

We accept referrals from GPs/ health professionals for patients seeking private treatment. The GP referral form provides information such as patient’s name, contact details, information on insurer or payment type. This form enables us to direct the enquiry to the most appropriate consultant who can then follow up with you directly to make an appointment for a consultation.

Our assumption is that your GP is referring you for private treatment at your request.

3.5 Patient testimonials, photos and videos of patients

We publish testimonials, photos and videos of patients on our website. We will ask you to sign our media consent form for this purpose. This form gives us your permission to use your photo/ video/ story on our website or for general marketing purposes. We may include your name to accompany the testimonial but you can choose to remain anonymous.

Parental permission: Any photos of children on the website will also require consent from you as their parent/ guardian.

3.6 Third party websites

This website may also contain links to third party websites and partner sites. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the collation of any personal information by third parties whose privacy policy may differ from ours.

4. How we protect personal data

We employ a range of measures to keep your data safe. Electronic data is stored on secure Trust computer systems and we control who has access to information. Our staff receive data protection training and we have procedures in place to deal with handling confidential and sensitive information.

How long we store information

We will only use and store information for as long as it is required for the purpose it was collected for. This is dependent on the information in question and what it is being used for. We will continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.

5. Individual’s rights – keeping you in control

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. The GDPR includes the following rights for individuals:

• the right to be informed
• the right to access
• the right to rectification
• the right to erasure
• the right to restrict processing
• the right to data portability
• the right to object
• the right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling.

We will always try to comply with your request, but please note there may be situations where we are unable to do so.

6. Compliments, comments and concerns

If you wish to make a complaint about our website or the service you have received from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Private Healthcare please email our customer service team – privatepatientenquiries@gstt.nhs.uk

If you still have any concerns with the way that your personal information has been handled you can write to the Trust’s Data Protection Officer at;

Information Governance, First Floor South Wing, St Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH.  Tel: 020 7188 7525 Email: IG@gstt.nhs.uk

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe there is a problem with how your personal data is being handled or you believe your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed.

Further details can be found on the ICO’s website – www.ico.org.uk

Our use of cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data that are gathered from the device you use to visit our website, for example your computer, tablet or mobile phone. Cookies are created to improve your experience of websites, for example they are needed for shopping carts or if you visit a site where you need to log in.

Cookies can be classified into persistent or session and first party or third party, explained below:

• session cookies are created temporarily when you a visit a website, for example to remember your information entered in a form when navigating to different pages. They do not contain any personal information about you and are deleted when you leave the site
• persistent cookies (also called a stored or permanent cookie) are used to collect information such as web surfing behaviour or preferences for a specific website. These cookies are not deleted when you leave the website, but expire after a set period
• first or third party cookies – these describe whether the cookies are issued by the website that you are currently visiting (first party) or by a different site (third party).

We do not use cookies to collect personal information about you or to identify individual users. Any cookies used by this website are either on a per session basis or to help us monitor our website, to improve it for future visitors or protect it from cybercrime.

Google Analytics cookies

Google Analytics sets a number of cookies to help us evaluate the use of our website, for example these cookies collect information about how our visitors use our website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. Full details are available from the Google Analytics website.

These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. The only identifiable information Google Analytics could take is your device’s IP address, but for your complete protection, we have actively disabled Google Analytics from recording the part of your IP address that could be used to identify you. All information collected by these cookies is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how our website works.

Controlling cookies

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.

Changing your cookie settings in your browser

To control the way your device manages cookies, go to your browser settings. The links below are designed to help but are not exhaustive:

• Changing cookie settings in Firefox
• Changing cookie settings in Internet Explorer (Information for IE8 and above)
• Changing cookie settings in Google Chrome
• Changing cookie settings in Safari (OS X)
• Changing cookie settings in Safari (iOS)
• Changing cookie settings in Android

For more information, visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website: www.ico.org.uk