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) and Data Protection Act (2018).

Ramsay Health Care UK is a "Data 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 and if we do so, an updated copy of this notice will be available on our website.

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. This is to ensure 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.
7. We are accountable for our data processing activities.

 

Data protection officer

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who is responsible for monitoring compliance with data protection legislation.

If you have any concerns or questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, or how your individual rights are honoured, please complete our online form and your request will be directed to the correct department for review

 

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 have appropriate safeguards in place to protect this data.

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

• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses;
• Date of birth;
• Gender;
• Marital status and dependants;
• Next of kin and emergency contact information;
• National Insurance number;
• Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information;
• Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information;
• Start date and, if different, the date of your continuous employment;
• Leaving date and your reason for leaving;
• Dates of previous periods of employment/engagement with you (for example if you move between Bank Agreement and Employment Contract).
• Location of employment or workplace;
• Copy of driving licence or passport;
• Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references, academic records and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process);
• Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, holidays, training records and professional memberships);
• Professional Registrations;
• Indemnity and Insurance Cover;
• Compensation history;
• Performance information;
• Disciplinary and grievance information. For the avoidance of doubt warnings will not be kept if expired;
• CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipe card records;
• Information about your use of our information and communications systems;
• Photographs;
• CCTV footage;
• Swipe Access Cards. If an individual has been issued with a door entry card to gain access to areas of our facilities, then the data on that card and its use will be the property of Ramsay Health Care UK and the purpose of processing this information will be for security, prevention and detection of crime and safety reasons;
• Results of HMRC employment status check, details of your interest in and connection with the intermediary through which your services are supplied.
• Next of kin, and emergency contact information (where it is expected you have informed them of you providing their details to us);
• Names and contact details of individuals named in expression of wishes/beneficiary or other similar documentation (where it is expected you have informed them of you providing their details to us);
• Private medical insurance membership application, membership and dependants details for eligible employees.
• For promotional marketing purposes - photography, video footage, quotes and testimonials (where permission has been provided)
• Information associated with the booking of national and international business travel, including passport details and dietary requirements.

We may also collect, store and use the following Special Category or more Sensitive types of personal information. We have lawful basis and safeguards in place to protect the processing of this data:

• Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs and sexual orientation;
• Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records, including:
  • Where you leave employment and under any share plan operated by a group company the reason for leaving is determined to be ill-health, injury or disability, the records relating to that decision;
  • Details of any absences (other than holidays), from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave;
  • 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;
  • Vaccination records, including your COVID-19 vaccination status which is available on the NHS COVID-19 Pass app. The information we store includes the date we saw your COVID-19 vaccination evidence and the vaccine status as vaccinated or medically exempt;
• Information about criminal convictions and offences.

 

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.

If you enrol in an apprentice or graduate programme, we will collect data directly from you. We may also collect data via associated training partners relevant to your programme.

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.

• Making a decision about your recruitment or appointment which would involve processing your Recruitment Information.
• Determining the terms on which you work for us or provide services to us.
• Determining whether your engagement is deemed employment for the purposes of Chapter 10 of Part 2 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 (ITEPA 2003) and providing you with a status determination statement in accordance with the applicable provisions of ITEPA 2003, otherwise known as IR35.
• Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK.
• Paying you and, if you are an employee or deemed employee for tax purposes, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs).
• Enrolling you in a pension arrangement in accordance with our statutory automatic enrolment duties.
• Administering the contract, we have entered into with you.
• Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing.
• Conducting performance reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements.
• Making decisions about salary reviews and compensation.
• Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.
• Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.
• Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement.
• Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.
• Education, training and development requirements.
• Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors, including accidents at work.
• Ascertaining your fitness to work.
• Managing sickness absence.
• Complying with health and safety obligations.
• To prevent fraud.
• To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies.
• To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
• To conduct data analytics studies to review and better understand employee retention and attrition rates.
• To conduct engagement surveys to understand and enhance your experience with Ramsay.
• For Consultants we may send you information regarding your professional development on your preferred choice of email communication. This will include GP Liaison Services.
• To provide pensions scheme members with financial education and related services.
• Staff Alumni access, if you are a former member of staff and you have expressed an interest in accessing our Staff Alumni Scheme we use and store your personal data (name and contact details) so that we can engage and stay in touch with you in order to maintain our relationship. We deem this to be within our legitimate interests, and will always require your ‘opt-in’ for this service. You can change your mind at any time by registering or deregistering your preference.
• Reporting for statutory purposes, where any published reports are full anonymized.
• For promotional marketing purposes - photography, video footage, quotes and testimonials (where permission has been provided)
• Booking and management of national / international  business travel expenses.
• Where you have received private medical insurance funding for a service provided by us, please see the ‘patient privacy notice’ for further information.

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 may 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, pensions and health insurance. 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.

 

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 and third parties

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.

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, designated agents and apprentice and graduate learning partners) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision, administration, education and 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 we share your 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, for optimising your relationship with the organisation, and for promotional marketing (where permission has been provided). 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;

• It will be necessary to share your data with the new organisation or receive your data from the previous organisation in order for the continuation of services. The transfer of data (this could include your personal data – name, address, contact details, along with employment data held within your employment record and data relating to your employment, apprenticeship or graduate programme etc.) will be managed in a secure manner in accordance with appropriate technical and organisational measures. Our aim is to ensure we are able to fully comply with our legal obligations regarding the retention and security of your data, while also ensuring continuity of your employment record.

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 measures

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.

 

How long do we keep your information?

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

The Law gives you certain rights about the personal information that we hold about you. We will comply with your request, where the law allows. Where we are unable to comply with your request will inform you of this.

We typically have one calendar month to reply and give you the information that you require or explain why we are unable to fulfil your request. If you have made a number of requests or your request is complex, we may need extra time to consider your request and can take up to an extra two months to respond. If we are going to apply an extension, we let you know within one month that we need more time and why.

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:

• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it;
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected;
• Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information 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 information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below);
• Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes;
• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

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.

 

Right to Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

You may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”) if you have concerns about the way we are handling your personal information or requests under your individual rights.

Information on raising a concern with the ICO can be found here.

Contact details:
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or
Live chat: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/live-chat/

 

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: 16.10.24 

Ramsay Health Care UK Operations Limited
Registered in England No.1532937

Registered office: Level 18, Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street, London, EC2N 1HQ
0808 258 2079