Privacy Policy

What we do

LiveWell Dorset is a health improvement service that supports adults Dorset to lead healthier lifestyles. We help people to stop smoking, cut down on alcohol, get more active and achieve a healthy weight (and/or eat more healthily). We do this in a few ways:

• Healthy lifestyle assessment and advice
• 1:1 telephone wellness coaching
• Connecting people with local opportunities such as weight loss services, stop smoking services and physical activity groups
• Helping health professionals to support people to take the first step to improving their health, through delivering behaviour change skills training

LiveWell Dorset is run by Public Health Dorset, who work across BCP Council and Dorset Council to improve and protect the health of the whole Dorset population.

The information we use, When and why

With consent, we ask everyone who signs up to our service – our ‘clients’ - for name, demographic information and contact details. This helps us to understand who our clients are and enables us to keep in touch.

To do our job, we need to conduct a healthy lifestyle assessment: this involves collecting details of clients’ physical activity levels, smoking status, alcohol consumption and height & weight. This data usually comes directly from the client – though in some cases a health professional may provide information on their behalf - and is used to help shape the support we offer them.

We collect all of the above information when clients join the service. Then, after 3, 6 and 12 months we’ll ask them for the healthy lifestyle assessment information again. This helps us to understand their progress and tailor the ongoing support we offer. It also enables us to understand how effective the service is: we use our data to learn what works and the areas of the service we need to improve.

We collect client information in several ways: over the telephone, by email and/or via our website. When we collect personal data, we make it clear why we need it and how we intend to use it. We don’t ask for any clinical information, or any information that is not relevant to the LiveWell Dorset service.

How we protect the information we use

We take our legal and professional obligations to protect personal information very seriously.

All the information our clients share with us is stored securely in our LiveWell Dorset database, which is backed up to a cloud-based server in Microsoft Azure. The server is looked after by our Dorset Council ICT Operations Team. Only Dorset Council staff who are involved in running and supporting the LiveWell Dorset service can access the database.

Appropriate security measures, policies & procedures and staff training are in place to prevent the personal data we hold being compromised. We ensure that we permanently delete any information that we no longer need to hold. We dispose of clients’ data five years after their last follow-up with the service.

Who we share information with

We use the Dorset Information Sharing Charter to make sure that if we share personal information we do so in a lawful, secure and confidential way. The Charter enables us to meet our statutory obligations and share information safely with partner organisations. This helps organisations to run services in a more joined-up way, leading to a smoother experience and better outcomes for residents.

The Public Health Dorset team, which runs LiveWell Dorset, is hosted by Dorset Council. The Dorset Council ICT Operations Team look after the server our database is backed up on. We also work with a company called Adido, who help manage our website and database. We all hold the same high standards for data protection. Only people who are involved in managing our data can access it and only have access to as much information as they need to do their jobs.

We only share information about individuals when direct consent has been given to do this (or when there is a clear legal basis for that information to be shared see ‘Legal Basis’ below). This could include sharing some details with another service we connect our clients with. We don’t currently share any personal data with clients’ GPs. If that changes, we’ll ask for permission to share information as relevant.

We produce a lot of information in the form of statistics, which are anonymous and used for internal evaluation of the service. We may publish and share reports on these statistics with groups such as the Joint Public Health Board, Health and Wellbeing Boards and other partners such as health professionals who refer their patients into LiveWell Dorset. We never publish any information that could be used to identify an individual.

Information collected through our website

When someone visits our website, they do not need to give us any personal information. We use a third-party service to collect standard information such as visitor behaviour patterns. This lets us track things like the number of visitors to different parts of the site, which helps us to develop and improve it. This information is processed in a way that does allow individuals to be identified. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of people who visit our website.

In some parts of the website we give the option to register with LiveWell Dorset. Where this happens, you are the chance to consent to share your information with us. If you agree, all the details listed in the above sections of this Privacy Notice will apply.

If we do want to use personal information collected on the website in any other way, we will make this clear when we collect it and give the choice of whether to share that information or not. For example, we may want to collect additional information to help us and our partners improve the way we work and the support we offer.

How we use cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by the websites you visit. They are widely used to make websites work well and to provide information to the owners of the websites. Any cookies we use do not contain records of any personal information you enter on the site.

A cookie cannot read data from your hard disk, read cookie files created by other websites or damage your system.

Links to other websites

This Privacy Notice does not cover the other websites that we provide links to. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Opting Out

You have the right to ask LiveWell Dorset to stop using and/or holding your personal data. Where possible we will seek to fulfil your request, but we may need to hold or process certain information to meet legal requirements (see Legal Basis below). Sometimes we have a legal duty to share information, for example if you or someone else is in danger.

The process for opting out will depend on which data you want to withdraw and which services you have been using. For further information, please contact the LiveWell Dorset team at the address below. Withdrawing consent to use or hold your personal information may prevent us from delivering a service to you.

Legal basis

Section 42 (4) of the Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007) as amended by section 287 of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) and Regulation 3 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002.

We usually process personal data using GDPR Article 6(1)(e):

processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller;

We may sometimes process data under Article 6(1)(d) in unusual or emergency situations:

processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person;

The law requires that we have a reason to process ‘special category data’, that is data relating to personal characteristics (racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation). We most often use GDPR Article 9(2)(a):

the data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes, except where Union or Member State law provide that the prohibition referred to in paragraph 1 may not be lifted by the data subject;

There may be times when we have to use other lawful basis to perform our legal tasks. One of those might be we require your consent to share data. If that is the case we will use Article 6(1)(a):

the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes.

Further queries

This Privacy Notice was written to be clear and concise. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of LiveWell Dorset’s collection and use of information, including personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be directed to Dorset Council’s Data Protection team:

data.protection@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
01305 225175

You may also ask to find out if we hold any of your personal information by making a ‘Data Subject’s Rights Request’ under the GDPR & Data Protection Act 2018, using the contact details above. If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.

If you require independent advice, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
casework@ico.org.uk
0303 123 1113

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 1st April 2021.