Your privacy

This page explains our privacy policy and how we will use and protect any information about you that you give us when you visit this website.

Information provided through this website is managed in accordance with the Department of Health’s Information Charter.

The information you provide through our feedback forms will be used to inform the Government’s plans to change the care and support system. This information will not appear in the public domain, for example in printed materials or websites, unless we have your permission. This information may be used in internal documents that are circulated to other government departments but no identifying information, such as your name or email address, will be included.

The Data Protection Act

Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.

Freedom of Information

Information provided in response to this consultation, including personal information, may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

The Department will process your personal data in accordance with the DPA and in most circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties.

Cookies

Cookies are pieces of data that are often created when you visit a website, and which are stored in the cookies directory of your computer. Cookies are created when you visit this site. The cookies do not contain any personal information about you, and they cannot be used to identify an individual user.

You can set your browser not to accept cookies. Check the Help instructions in your web browser to find out how to do this.

What happens when I link to another site?

We do not pass on any personal information you have given us to any other site. The site may contain links to other websites, both of government departments and of other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any other site(s) which collect personal information about you. We do not pass on any personal information you have given us to any other site.

Changes to this privacy policy

If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.