The London Borough of Hounslow is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Through this Privacy Notice we have sought to be as transparent as possible and fully explain how your personal data is held and processed.
This privacy notice applies to services provided by ADULT SOCIAL CARE for London Borough of Hounslow and tells you what we do with your personal information. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or any concerns about how we process your data, please contact 020 8583 3100 or adultsocialcare@hounslow.gov.uk or via the postal address below. The privacy notice will continue to be monitored and updated. You are advised to check this page from time to time.
Adult Social Care
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
Hounslow, TW3 3EB
What type of information we have
We currently collect and process the following personal information:
- Names
- Addresses
- Dates of birth
- National insurance number
- Telephone numbers
- Email addresses
- GP details
- Financial/Bank Account details
- IP addresses – for the sole purpose of excluding corporate network IP addresses when carrying out internal testing on the uptake and effectiveness of our online forms. The IP addresses of the public will only be used to measure website
- performance and not for profiling, behavioral or marketing purposes.
As well as personal information where applicable, we may collect and share additional information known as ‘Special Categories of Personal Data’ where appropriate including:
- Health assessment
- Professional’s referrals
- Mental capacity assessments
- Gender
- Nationality
- Ethnic origin
- Religion
- Sexual orientation.
How do we get your information?
Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you but we may also receive personal information indirectly from:
- Other Hounslow Council departments such as Housing
- Your carer, advocate or family member
- Health professionals such as your GP or those providing you with therapeutic or medical care
- General hospitals or other in-patient services
- Government Bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions
- Other Local Authorities
- The emergency services
We only process the information above if it is required for us to carry out statutory social care functions for which we are legally responsible.
Our Lawful basis for processing your information
The lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is:
- Legal obligation – so that we comply with a common law or statutory obligation that has a clear basis in law
- Public task – so that we may perform a task in the public interest or for an official function, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
- Basis in law referred to above includes but is not limited to: The Care Act 2014, Health & Social Care Act 2015, Mental Capacity Act 2005, Mental Health Act 1983 and Liberty Protection Safeguards
If the information you provide us contains special category data, such as health, religious or ethnic information, the legal basis we rely on to process is
- Health or social care purposes – for the provision of health or social care or treatment and for social support services
- Substantial public interest – processing is necessary to meet statutory and government purposes
Why we need your information (purposes of processing)
The personal data we collect will be used for the following purposes:
To carry out an assessment of your needs and to provide or arrange services you are entitled to, which meet all of our legal and statutory duties including, but not limited to, those which apply under the Care Act 2014, Health and Social Care Act 2015 and Care Quality Registration Regulations 2009
- to allow us to communicate and provide services appropriate to your needs, these may include, but are not limited to:
- Provision of a support plan or care package
- Referrals to services and partner agencies that can assist with meeting your eligible needs
- Support or signposting to help you live independently
- Respite provision
- To allow us to gather information which informs planning and service delivery decisions
- assess performance
- where necessary, to safeguard people to protect them from harm or injury
- to enable us to conduct research or statistical analysis that allows us to target and plan the provision of services for adults. For example, we are participating in a Study funded by the Department of Health and Social Care and conducted by researchers from the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory (GIAM) at University of West London, looking at everyday social care for people living with dementia from African and African Caribbean communities in England. Our participation is in order to better understand how to improve African and African Caribbean people living with dementia, and their carers’ and families’ experience of social care services, and to improve timely access to social service support for this population
- to assist the council in responding to emergencies or major incidents. This allows the council, in conjunction with the emergency services, to identify citizens who may need additional support
- Access to funds, including for those individuals who are not entitled to public funds
- To set up a direct debit for social care payments, if applicable.
- To share relevant information with Electoral Services, where appropriate, to enable them to identify residents with sight loss who may benefit from support with registering to vote, receiving election information, or requesting reasonable adjustments to ensure the voting process is accessible.
Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)
When it is necessary, we may share your information with:
- Care providers for the purpose of planning, providing or arranging the care that you are entitled to
- NHS England – General Practitioners and other health professionals (including the ambulance service, hospitals and mental health trusts)
- Commissioned Health Care Providers such as Hounslow and Richmond Community Health Care Trust, West London NHS Trust and Hounslow Clinical Commissioning Group
- Community enterprises that offer voluntary or commissioned services in support of the care you need or activities that support your wellbeing
- Think Forward – an external organisation commissioned by the Council to deliver an Employment Transition programme called Making Strides
- LBH interns aged 17-24 years enrolled on our DFN Project SEARCH provision (transition from education to work programme delivered in partnership with West Thames College and Kaleidoscope) – employment data is shared with the national DFN Project SEARCH team and used to assist social care teams with data processing
- Other internal departments in the London Borough of Hounslow, such as the Housing Team, Direct Payments and the Accounts Receivable Team and only if the need to do so relates directly to the care and support you receive from us
- The Access Group so they can process your name and address and bank account details to undertake “know your customer” checks and process direct debit payments related to your social care provision, if applicable.
- Government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions
- Ministry of Justice agencies including HM Courts and Tribunal Service and HM Prison and Probation Service
- The Metropolitan Police or other Police services
- The London Fire Brigade and other Fire Services
- Adult Social Care teams in other Local Authorities
- Family members, carers or advocates for the person whose personal data we are processing
We will strive to ensure that any personal data in our care will be kept safe and that where your information is disclosed to a third party working on our behalf, we will seek to ensure that they have sufficient systems and procedures in place to prevent the loss or damage of personal data.
How long we keep your information
We keep records containing personal information for specific periods depending on the type of record – these can be found in Appendix A of this document.
We will then dispose of your information in the most secure manner possible.
Business Intelligence, Profiling and Analysis
We may analyze your personal information to improve the council’s services for the following purposes:
- undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively
- service planning by understanding your needs and your community's needs and to provide the services that you or your community request
- understanding what we can do for you and your community and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
- help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of Hounslow need
- analysis of costs and spend of services we provide so that we can ensure better and efficient use of public funds
The council is committed to using pseudonymised or anonymised information where practical, and in many cases this will be the default position.
Pseudonymisation is a procedure by which the most identifying fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers, or pseudonyms. There can be a single pseudonym for a collection of replaced fields or a pseudonym per replaced field. An example of this is your National Insurance number or Council Tax Reference number.
Anonymisation is the process of removing identifying particulars or details. This means that the data cannot be linked back to identify you.
Data Matching and Auditing
We are required by law to protect the public funds we administer. We may use the information you provide to us for the prevention and detection of crime if we are asked to do so by the Police. We may also share this information with other bodies that are responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities and the Police.
We may share anonymised gross data with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Department of Health and Social Care for the purposes of auditing our practices and services in order to improve service quality and outcomes in the care we provide to you.
As part of the council’s fraud prevention and detection activities, the council participates in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). The data matching exercise is run by the Cabinet Office. You can find more information about this at the link below:
National Fraud Initiative - GOV.UK
The national data opt out
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. This will prevent it 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. The following link provides further information for you and details about how you can opt out if you choose to do so - National data opt-out operational policy guidance document
Your data protection rights
The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information. For further information about your data protection rights and how to make a request, please see ‘Your rights’
Your right to make a complaint
The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.
If you want to make a complaint you can contact us on:
Complaints Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB
Email: complaints.crt@hounslow.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 8583 5211
Data Protection Officer
The Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted on:
Email: InformationGovernance@hounslow.gov.uk
Information Governance Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB
Information Commissioner’s Office
The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights. If you would like to know more about your rights under the Data Protection law, and what you should expect, visit the Information Commissioner’s website:
If you have any concerns regarding any privacy practices or about exercising your Data Protection rights, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office: www.https://ico.org.uk
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745
Email: casework@ico.org.uk
A full list of what information we control and process and for what purposes is set out in our notification with the Information Commissioner's Register of Data Controllers.
Our registration number is Z5761176.
You can view our registration on the Information Commissioner's website.
