Adult Services will work with you to promote your health and wellbeing, designing services to maintain your independence and dignity. We make sure you have as much choice and control as possible over how you live.
We are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our service. This privacy notice explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy. This privacy notice sits beneath the council’s corporate privacy statement and provides information about how personal data is used by Haringey’s adult social care and health services. Please see the corporate privacy statement for details on your rights and who to contact about the use of your personal data.
We provide information, advice, and support for individuals and their carers who:
- have a physical and/or sensory impairment
- have a learning disability
- have autism
- have mental health support needs
- are over 65 years and need support, care for a friend or relative or need support to keep people safe
The lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal data is Article 6(1) (c) Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for you to comply with the law.
Under the Care Act 2014, we must carry out assessments for anyone who appears to require care and support, regardless of their likely eligibility for state-funded care. The Act gives us a duty to support individuals to be independent and safe in the community for as long as possible.
Assessments of need will focus on how they impact your wellbeing and the outcomes that you want to achieve. We deliver support to you by working with a number of agencies in the public, private and voluntary sectors to organise the appropriate level of care.
For those adults who fit into the categories previously listed we have a duty to undertake assessments and provide support to help individuals stay independent. We also have a duty to protect adults in those categories from safeguarding risks. This might be those at risk of physical harm or financial abuse for example.
Adult Safeguarding
The Haringey Adult Safeguarding Team have the responsibility of ensuring that no vulnerable adult is subject to abuse or neglect. If we receive a concern relating to a vulnerable resident the Care Act 2014 guidance states that early sharing of information is the key to providing an effective response where there are emerging concerns for an Adult at Risk, and no professional should assume that someone else will pass on information which they think may be critical to the safety and wellbeing of the adult. If concerns are raised about the adult's welfare, whether this be the belief that they are suffering or likely to suffer abuse or neglect, and/or are a risk to themselves or another, information can be shared with our partner agencies. More information can be found in our Safeguarding Adults pages.
Commissioning
We commission, alongside our health partners, a range of services to deliver appropriate care to anyone over 18 years of age in the borough. We ensure, via a robust monitoring process, that all our care providers meet national standards of care provision. We work closely with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which is the governing body that oversees all care provided.
Our work with Health colleagues
To provide coordinated and person-centred social care, we work closely with NHS colleagues. These include:
- Healthcare agencies and Integrated Care Board (ICB)
- Practitioners, acute health services, specialist health professionals, GPs, and district nurses
- Health staff in hospitals via our hospital social work teams
- Hospital admissions services to be aware when someone we work with is admitted
- Health colleagues in our integrated Mental Health Service
- Health colleagues in our integrated Learning Disabilities Service
We share information about how cases are managed to enable us to work together and provide the best possible service to you.
NHS Number
If you are receiving support from adult social care, then the NHS may share your NHS Number with us. By using the same number, we can work together more closely to improve your care and support.
The use of joined-up information across health and social care brings many benefits, such as for the discharge of patients into social care. Delays in discharge can occur because details of social care involvement are not readily available to the staff on the hospital ward. The hospital does not know who to contact to discuss the ongoing care of a patient. The linking of social care and health information via the NHS Number helps hospital staff quickly identify if social care support is already in place and who the most appropriate contact is. Ongoing care can be planned earlier in the process because hospital staff will know who to talk to.
Additional benefits of sharing the NHS Number are:
- Better coordination and safer care across health and social care enabled through the sharing of real-time information
- Better coordination of discharges from hospital into social care
- More time to spend on planning and coordinating social care because health staff can identify and involve social care staff earlier in the process
- Earlier intervention to maximise the opportunities or reablement services leading to greater independence for patients
The National Data Opt-Out
Your health information may be used by the NHS or government to:
- improve the quality and standards of care provided
- research into the development of new treatments
- prevent illness and diseases
- monitor safety
- plan services
You can also find out more about how patient information is used at:
- The NHS Health Research Authority website - covers health and care research
- The Understanding Patient Data website - covers how and why patient information is used, the safeguards and how decisions are made
The National Data Opt-Out was introduced on 25 May 2018, to allow you to opt-out from the use of your data for anything other than your individual care and treatment, preventing it from being used for research or planning purposes as listed above. The Opt-Out is in line with the recommendations of the National Data Guardian in the Review of Data Security, Consent and Opt-Outs.
The National Data Opt-Out applies to the NHS and some of the activities of the council. If you are happy with the use of your data for research and service planning you do not need to do anything.
Health agencies and councils must check the NHS National Data Opt-Out system before using your data for research or planning. If you do choose to opt out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care.
You can change your national data opt-out choice at any time by using the online service or by clicking on Your Health in the NHS App, and selecting "Choose if data from your health records is shared for research and planning".
Health and Social Care data linkage
To provide you with the best direct care we link data from the health and social care services you use. These data are also used to help us better plan services for you and understand how well existing services are working and meeting needs Individual purposes are listed below.
HealtheIntent
HealtheIntent is a platform that will allow health and care professionals in north central London to be more proactive in the care of patients and communities.
The system links elements of health and care information from different sources and enables clinicians to manage and plan care for individuals and groups of residents in relation to health or social care. Healthcare professionals directly involved in a patient’s care can view a patient’s joined-up record, showing information collected by different providers over time. The joined-up record helps to spot trends, concerns or gaps in care.
This information contained in this record is used to create ‘registries’ and ‘analytics’.
- Registries give a dashboard view to show how one or more patients are doing relating to agreed measures associated with particular conditions. For example, the diabetes dashboard shows measures relating to the effective management of care for a patient, or groups of patients with diabetes, such as BMI, or regular eye and foot exams. The dashboard will present up-to-date relevant information from all care providers, and alert clinicians to any gaps or duplication.
- Analytics can help to spot trends and variations in groups of patients and help professionals to identify any specific actions that need to be taken to improve care.
- Dashboards will be available to support case finding for individual patients.
Most data on HealtheIntent will be anonymised. Only a healthcare professional who is directly involved in a patient’s care will be able to see that individual patient’s record.
Health Information Exchange
Haringey Council’s Adult Social Care is a participant in Health Information Exchange (HIE). HIE is an Electronic Health Record (EHR) linking system that brings together patient/client information across health and care systems in a secure manner, giving a real-time summary of your information which is held within a number of local records.
Access to joined-up health and care records will save time and support everyone delivering health and care services by providing:
- A snapshot view of a resident’s health and care history, current and past medications and a summary of previous events and episodes of care
- Information such as discharge summaries and clinic letters, so teams have a broader understanding of a resident’s story
- Current medications, medical history, allergies and information about appointments
- Results of tests and investigations requested by other providers, reducing the need to manually request the results of tests
- Accurate information, so a resident no longer need to recall and retell their history, medication dosages or the outcome of previous care
For further information please see the North Central London Integrated Care System.
Contractors or Providers
The council sometimes employs organisations or contractors to carry out work for us. We provide them with the personal information that they need to carry out their work.
Relevant information about you may be passed to external organisations to arrange support to meet your health and social care needs. The types of organisations we may pass your information to are:
- Providers of residential and nursing care services
- Providers of respite services
- Providers of community services with whom the council has a contract with
- Other Local Authorities if you are placed or transferred outside of the borough
Improving our Services
We may use your information to help us understand how our service is being used and to work with you to improve how we do things. This allows us to better manage money and resources. If we share or publish the social care summary statistics that we gather, we never identify you personally in the report.
Personal information we collect
- Address and contact details
- DOB
- Gender
- Financial information
- Equalities Information like racial or ethnic origin
- Property information
- Criminal/Prosecution Information
- Health/Medical Information
- Social Services Records
- Other Agencies Involved
- Housing Information
- Information from the Local Authority from where you live and previously lived
- Family/Relationship Information
- NHS Number and hospital ID
- Support Network
- Referral/Assessment Information
- Images in photographs
Where we get your information
- You
- People acting on your behalf, for example, a lawyer or planning agent
- Referrals from GPs, the Police, Councils or Providers
- DWP
- Police
- Judicial Agencies, for example Courts
- Health Agencies or GP
- Legal representatives
- Expert Witnesses
- Council services (Adults and Health)
- HMRC
- Government departments (Immigration, Inland Revenue, Professional regulatory bodies
- Probation/Prison Services
- UK Border Agency
- Council legal service
- Other local authorities
- Voluntary Agencies /Third Sector
- Housing providers like Haringey Housing
- Specialist Organisations, e.g. Telecare (Argenti). This organisation offers clients the opportunity to obtain mostly sensor technology which can assist a person to feel safe inside or outside their home
Who we share your information with
- The police and fire service
- Judicial Agencies, for example Courts
- Health Agencies or GP
- Legal representatives
- Government departments Dept of Health, Dept of Education)
- Professional regulatory bodies
- UK Border Agency
- Council legal service
- Other local authorities
- Voluntary Agencies/Third Sector
- Housing providers like Haringey Housing including to help them understand your Health or Social Care needs if you are being affected by an eviction or a decant of one of their buildings
- Care homes or residential facilities
- Home Office
- Office of the Public Guardian
- Council services; Environmental services like recycling and waste (for hoarding or assisted collection), Children’s services for both individuals transitioning between child and adult social care, and to carry out their statutory responsibility to safeguard children in need or at risk, and Council Tax and Benefits teams
We will work with you to choose what (if any) information about you, that we provide to your family, friends and support network.
How long we keep your information
As a principle, information about you will not be kept for longer than it is needed, for the purpose it was collected.
Haringey Council has records retention schedules which document for how long different information is required. For more detailed information about the personal information that we hold and how we use it, please see our Record of Processing Activities.
As the retention schedules indicate, we need to keep different data for differing periods of time. If you have any queries regarding how long we keep your data that are not answered in the schedules, please email the Data Protection Team at data.protectionact@haringey.gov.uk
When it is no longer required in line with its retention period, personal information is securely and permanently destroyed.
Legislation that applies
- Care Act 2014 (Encourages caregivers to adopt a person-centred approach with vulnerable Safeguarding adults)
- The Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015 (a duty on health and adult social care providers to share information about a person's care with other health and care professionals)
- Health and Safety Care Act 2012 (Legal duties about health inequalities)
- Equalities Act 2020 (established equality duties for all public sector bodies which aim to integrate consideration of the advancement of equality into the day-to-day business of all bodies subject to the duty)
- Health Act 2009 Chapter 3 (Direct Payments - the electronic transfer of funds to make payments)
- Mental Health Act 1983, 2007 (Is designed to give health professionals the powers, in certain circumstances, to detain, assess and treat people with mental disorders in the interests of their health and safety or for public safety)
- Local Safeguarding Children & Adults Boards Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/90)
- Mental Capacity Act 2005: Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
- Social Security Administration Act 1992 (the main piece of legislation dealing with the administration of social security benefits)
- Housing Grants and Regeneration Act (revised 2016)
Your rights
Please see the Haringey Council's corporate privacy statement for more details on your rights and how to exercise them.
- to be informed
- to access your personal data
- to rectify your personal data if it is incorrect
- to restrict our processing of your personal data
- You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the way we are handling your personal information. Details on how you can do this can be found at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
If you do find that the information, we hold on you is incorrect, you should inform us as soon as possible to update our records.