Privacy Notice

What is the purpose of this document?

Sherrards Occupational Health 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 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Sherrards Occupational Health 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 does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

We will comply with data protection law. This says that 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.

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 "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you, which includes some “Special Categories” of personal information:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, personal and work email addresses.

  • Date of birth.

  • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.

  • Employment Start date.

  • Employment records (including job titles, working hours, job profile).

  • Performance information.

  • Disciplinary and grievance information.

  • Personal information which you may provide as part of your occupational health assessment you have with our service providers.

How is your personal information collected?

We typically collect personal information about you from your employer and from you personally in the first instance. We will then collect information about you from health professionals. This may – with your consent – include your GP and/or specialists with responsibility for your care. It will also include any information provided by occupational health doctors and nurses to whom you are sent for an appointment.

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 where we have your consent to do so. However, we may also use it in the following circumstances:

  1. Where we need to perform a contract we have entered into with you.

  2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

  3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of 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 or for official purposes.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above (see The kind of information we hold about you). In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

  • Making occupational health appointments for you.

  • Sharing occupational health referral forms with you and with occupational health doctors and nurses. This may contain details about your sickness levels, health history and other relevant personal data we hold about you.

  • Taking advice on your fitness to work.

  • Sharing that medical advice with you and your employer.

  • Sharing that medical advice – where necessary or relevant – with legal advisers.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

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 particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

  1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.

  2. Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

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.

Our obligations

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

  • We will use information relating to leave of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leave, to comply with employment and other laws.

  • 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.

Data sharing

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.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law 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 other occupational health service providers) and other entities within our group. Third-party service providers process personal information about you in order to provide occupational health 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.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties in the context of the provision of occupational health services. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have 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.

Data retention - how long will you use my information for?

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. 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 your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

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. Once it is no longer relevant, we will securely destroy your personal information

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 Sherrards Occupational Health in writing.

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 clearly unfounded or excessive.

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

Where you have provided your consent 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 Sherrards Occupational Health. 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.

Questions and complaints

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact Sherrards Occupational Health. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

Information Commissioner’s Office
Whycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline Number: 0303 123 1113

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Notice at any time.