NHS 111 Wales

Privacy Policies

Your Privacy Your Rights

These leaflets explain why NHS Wales collects information about you and how this may be used:

If you are a Welsh resident who has received treatment by an NHS care provider in England, your information will be shared back into NHS Wales in order to verify and combine with your information held in Wales. That information will be used by the Health Board/Trust to identify you and validate what care was provided.

What information do you need from me?

When you phone NHS 111 Wales, you will be asked to provide some basic information about yourself and the reason for your call. Personal information that may be required can include; your name, address, date of birth, telephone number and name of your doctor (GP).

What is it used for?

The information we ask for is used to provide you with appropriate healthcare advice.

We also need your information to:

Create and maintain a personal health record
Make sure we have the right caller when you contact the service again or if we need to call you back
Help staff review the care they provide to ensure it is of the highest standard
Teach and train staff
Conduct health research and audit
Plan service delivery across Wales where and when it is needed
Ensure we have the information people in Wales are asking for
Record and investigate complaints

NHS 111 Wales carries out patient experience surveys to make sure our callers receive the most appropriate advice, care and high quality service. Surveys are carried out over the telephone or by post and participation is voluntary.

How is my information kept?

Calls are recorded and stored securely within the computer systems of NHS 111 Wales.

All NHS staff have a legal and professional duty to keep information about you confidential.

At NHS 111 Wales, this includes information recorded during the call and the information documented on the computer system. Personal information held about you will be treated in confidence and will not be disclosed to a third party without your permission unless under certain circumstances. In general, these relate to serious criminal offences, and the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

What if I do not wish to give any personal information?

You can decide how much information you give; you can even use NHS 111 Wales anonymously if you wish. Certain information will, of course, be needed for us to advise you appropriately.

Is there a law that governs the use of my information?

The Data Protection Act (2018), the Human Rights Act (1998) and the Freedom of Information Act (2000) are the laws which state that information about you can only be used in certain ways.

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that personal data must be ‘processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.’ This means that you have a right to privacy, which is upheld through any use of your personal information by the NHS.

How is information used for training, audit and research?

To ensure NHS 111 Wales staff provide the best possible service to the people of Wales, spending time reviewing patients records and listening to calls is an essential element of staff training and development.

Information is required to carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone. Whenever possible we will anonymise information about you and, where we have to use identifiable information, strict confidentiality rules will apply and may be subject to rigorous approval processes where identifiable information is used.

Can I have access to my records?

You have a right of access to request the information we hold about you within our records. If anything is inaccurate or incorrect you also have the right to rectification along with other rights. If you think some of your information may be incorrect please let us know and we will correct it. For more information see Requests for Records - Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust