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Personnel Privacy Notice

Avery Healthcare Group Ltd is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data.

This privacy notice describes how Avery Healthcare Group Ltd (“Avery Healthcare”, “we, “us”, “our”) collects and uses your personal data prior to, during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with applicable data protection legislation.

It applies to all Avery Healthcare personnel including current and former employees, workers and contractors (together referred to as “personnel” in this notice).

  1. Important information and who we are

This notice applies to current and former Avery Healthcare personnel. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services.

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 data about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.

Controller

Avery Healthcare is the controller in respect of your personal data for the purposes of the data protection legislation. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use your personal data. We are required under the data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

We have appointed a data protection officer (“DPO”) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise ‘Your legal rights’, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Avery Healthcare Group Limited

Email address: privacy@averyhealthcare.co.uk

Postal address: Avery Group Support Centre, 3 Cygnet Drive, Swan Valley, Northampton, NN4 9BS

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, welcome the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new privacy notice on this page. You are advised to review this privacy notice periodically for any changes.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your working relationship with us by informing your line manager of the required changes.

  1. The data we collect 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 from which the identity of individuals has been removed (“anonymous data”).

There are special categories of personal data which are more sensitive and therefore require a higher level of protection, these include details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data (“special category data”). Personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures (“criminal offence data”) is also subject to this higher level of protection.

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

  • Identification information – name, title, date and place of birth, gender, marital status, nationality, National Insurance number, copy of driving licence and passport and photographs.
  • Contact details – addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.
  • Family information – next of kin and emergency contact information.
  • Recruitment information – copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included the application form completed by you as part of the application process.
  • Personnel information – start date and, if different, the date of your continuous employment, job title(s), work contact information, location of employment or workplace, work history, working hours, holidays, training records, professional memberships, salary, pension and other benefits information, performance record, appraisals, disciplinary and grievance information, leaving date and your reason for leaving.
  • Financial information – bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
  • IT systems information – information about your use of our information and communications systems, including any CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means.

We may also collect, store and use the following special category personal data:

  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
  • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, including:
    • details of any absences (other than holidays) from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave;
    • any health information in relation to a claim made under the permanent health insurance scheme; and
    • where you leave employment and the reason for leaving is related to your health, information about that condition needed for pensions and permanent health insurance purposes.
  • Trade union membership.
  • Genetic information and biometric data.
  • Criminal offence data.
  1. How is your personal data collected?

We collect personal data initially about our personnel through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from recruitment agencies, job sites such as Indeed or Linkedin, background check providers and/or former employers.

We will collect additional personal data in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us. You may give us your personal data directly by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, our website, face to face or otherwise. Additionally, information you enter onto our systems and devices will be stored and processed by us. This will include any emails or other electronic messages and any documents, photos or other files stored or processed through our systems or devices. Please be aware that by entering information onto these systems you are sharing that information with Avery Healthcare.

We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including tax and regulatory authorities such as HMRC, credit reference agencies, other background check agencies and publicly available resources.

We may also collect personal data from the trustees or managers of pension arrangements operated by a group company.

If you fail to provide personal data

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 personnel).

  1. How we use your personal data

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

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into with you or have entered into with you.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
  • 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.
  • Where it is needed for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest e.g. where required to provide data to our regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

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

  • Where we need to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s vital interests).

Purposes for which we use your personal data

We use the categories of personal data listed above for the following purposes. Where a legitimate interest is involved, we state what the legitimate interest is.

Pursuant to our contract with you in order to:

  • Determine the terms on which you work for us.
  • Conduct payroll, expenses, compensation, bonus and tax administration (as applicable).
  • Conduct personnel administration, including administration of any benefits.
  • Monitor performance, appraisals, absences, holidays, disciplinaries, grievances and other investigations.
  • Make arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.

In our legitimate interests for the purpose of:

  • Hiring and recruitment and the processing of job applications in order to make a decision about your recruitment or appointment, including any employment background i.e. Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, reference, qualifications and training checks and checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK (to ensure efficient and effective recruitment).
  • Informing you about work-related events, opportunities and benefits, both during your employment and afterwards (to ensure that you are able to take part in those events or opportunities and access those benefits).
  • Monitoring and enforcing compliance with Avery Healthcare policies and procedures and applicable law (to ensure a compliant workplace).
  • Allowing access to and monitor our IT and security infrastructure including the use of CCTV footage in our offices and on our sites (to keep personnel and others safe and secure). Further details of how use CCTV can be found in our ARMS Policy, a copy can be obtained from your Line Manager or from Avery Healthcare’s Intranet.
  • Carrying out and reviewing employee surveys and communicating with you generally (to improving our workplace).
  • Dealing with legal disputes, including bringing or defending legal claims (to defend or enforce our rights).
  • Accounting and financial planning purposes (to ensure efficient and effective management).

You have the right to object to processing carried out for our legitimate interests. See the What are your rights? section below for more information.

Pursuant to the performance of a public task to:

  • Comply with requests for data from our regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), as part of our public interest obligations.
  • To confirm your right to work in the UK.

To comply with legal obligations relating to:

  • Data protection.
  • Employment.
  • Tax.
  • Health and safety.
  • Anti-money laundering.
  • Anti-discrimination.
  • Mandatory reporting obligations.
  • Disclosures required by law enforcement agencies.
  • Fraud investigations.
  • Any other legal obligations placed on us from time to time.

Personnel Media Contributions

From time to time personnel may be filmed/recorded/photographed/quoted (collectively called “media contributions”). We will use these media contributions in our legitimate interests to promote and publicise Avery Healthcare and its subsidiary companies.

Avery Healthcare will not use any employee media contributions in a way which would cause embarrassment or misrepresentation to its personnel and will use media contributions for the sole purpose they were intended for.

Personnel may at any time request that Avery Healthcare ceases using their media contributions for the purposes set out above by contacting marketing@averyhealthcare.co.uk . Please note that Avery Healthcare will do it’s upmost to facilitate any such requests, however media contributions may continue to appear in publications already in circulation.

How we use special category data

Special category data attracts a higher level of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal data.

We may process special category data in the following circumstances:

  • In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
  • Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment, social security and social protection.
  • Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme.
  • 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 vital interests (or someone else’s vital interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Purposes for which we use your special category data

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

  • We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits including statutory maternity pay, statutory sick pay, and pensions. We need to process this information to exercise rights and perform obligations in connection with your employment.
  • If we reasonably believe that you or another person are at risk of harm and the processing is necessary to protect you or them from physical, mental or emotional harm or to protect physical, mental or emotional well-being.
  • We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

Criminal offence data

We collect and process criminal offence data where it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. 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, regulatory and law enforcement bodies or the Home Office in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:

  • To perform DBS checks on our staff (as required)
  • To share such information with regulatory or enforcement bodies or the Home Office (as required)

We are allowed to use your personal data in this way:

  • To carry out our obligations in connection with employment, social security and social protection law;
  • Where it is necessary for the purposes of the prevention or detection of an unlawful act; and
  • Where it is necessary for the purposes of complying with, or assisting other persons to comply with, a regulatory requirement to establish whether another person has committed an unlawful act or been involved in dishonestly, malpractice or other seriously improper conduct.

Automatic decision making

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means. However, we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

  1. Who might we share your personal data with?

For the purposes set out in the ‘How we use your personal data’ section above, we may share your personal data with the following third party processors:

  • Training providers.
  • Payroll providers.
  • Pension and other workplace benefits providers (as notified to you from time to time).
  • Occupational health providers.
  • IT service providers.

We may also share your personal data with third parties in the following circumstances:

  • Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
  • In the course of business, to other organisations and individuals as required in relation to your role and duties.
  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
  • When it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
  • HM Revenue & Customs, regulators, such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our customers, our regulator, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and prevention of money laundering and credit risk reduction.
  1. Transferring information outside the UK

We do not transfer your data outside the UK. If in future we do need to transfer your data outside the UK, we will only do so if adequate protection measures are in place in compliance with data protection legislation.

  1. Data security

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

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

  1. How long do we keep your personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements.

For much of your personal data, this will be for the length of your working relationship with us and then for a period of 6 years thereafter. We will retain some information relating to your training and working conditions to defend against claims of injury or disability.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of that personal data, the purposes for which we process the personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, for research and statistical purposes, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of Avery Healthcare, we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.

  1. Your legal rights

We aim to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your personal data without you having to exercise your legal rights. You can update your personal data yourself, for example, if you change your address, by informing your line manager of the required changes.

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”) – this enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you – this enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data – this enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data – this applies where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the lawful basis for the processing of your personal data and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which overrides your rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data – this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
    • If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.
    • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
    • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
    • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party – we will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Please note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time – where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain goods or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the DPO at privacy@averyhealthcare.co.uk.

No fee usually required

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

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 your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.