Your Confidential Information is very important to us.
Medical Information
When you are referred to the Hospice as a patient and give us your contact and medical information, this is held by the medical team on the Medical Database and used solely to help your medical condition. Your information may be shared with other relevant third parties as necessary, such as Macmillan Support, Marie Curie, St.Mary’s Hospital, etc, to help provide the best care for your condition.
Volunteers Information
When you become a volunteer for the Hospice, you will be asked to give contact details, areas of interest and abilities, so that we can find a role for you which best matches your interests and abilities. This information is retained on a separate, Volunteers Database and is not shared with other third parties or the Hospice Management or Medical Databases.
Supporters Information.
When you make a donation to the Hospice, help at an event, give a ‘gift in kind’ or agree to Gift Aid, your contact details will be retained on the Management Database. The Charity Commission require us to be able to show a clear audit trail of donations and putting your name on this database allows us to fulfil that requirement. Should you wish to see this information, we will be pleased to send you a copy.
You may rest assured that this information will never be sold to a third party, however we would like to be able to use it to keep you informed of what is happening at the hospice, conduct research etc. If you would prefer your information not to be used in this way, please email info@emhfunding.com.
Supporters’ information will also not be shared with the Medical and Volunteer Databases.
Two implications of not sharing information
A/ Because your information is not shared between the databases, this means that Volunteer and Supporter Databases do not automatically know when someone who may have given a gift to the Hospice or have been a Volunteer is admitted as a patient or even has died at the Hospice. This may mean that, on occasion, what appears to be a very untimely communication is sent to a patient or their relative by the Hospice.
While we regret this, we believe that since the medical information was given for medical reasons and not general use that patient contact information should not be given to other departments unless you specifically state that this is what you would like. If you have a view or concern about this the Medical Director is very happy to discuss it with you.
B/ When a patient is referred to the Hospice and gives information about their next of kin, this too is not shared with the Volunteer or Management Databases. So there is no automatic way that a supporter on the Management Database is recognised as the next of kin of a patient. The implication is that an inappropriate letter may be sent through lack of knowledge or In-Memoriam gifts for a patient are not related back to the next of kin. We deeply regret this, but it is the unfortunate side effect of the policy of keeping medical information discreet.
On Death.
At the point where a patient dies in the Hospice’s care (not at St.Mary’s or a Care Home) the Medical Team will pass the patient’s contact details only, to the Hospice Management database to be flagged accordingly. We also check our records against the Bereavement Register and Mortascreen. We do take every endeavour to be aware of the sensitivity of the situation for the bereaved family.
However, sometimes information for newsletter mailings have to be selected six weeks prior to the newsletter arriving and a recent bereavement will be missed. We are very sorry for the distress that this will cause. We do try to keep the time gap as short as possible to minimise the risk of this happening.
In Summary
We respect the confidentiality of your information, so hold it on three, unlinked databases and use the information to give the best quality of care to our patients and to manage our resources and fundraise as cost-effectively as possible. We go beyond the requirements of the Data Protection Act in this regard.
Should you wish us, as a patient, patient’s relative or as a volunteer to automatically link your information across the databases, please email info@emhfunding or write to Fundraising, Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Halberry Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 2ER