Macmillan Cancer Information & Supports Service Privacy Policy
Within the context of this policy ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refers to The Bolton Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Service which is a service designed and delivered by four partner organisations:
- Bolton Hospice (registered charity number 518704).
- Macmillan Cancer Support (registered charity number 261017).
- Bolton People Affected by Cancer- a local user involvement group.
- NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (Bolton).
The Macmillan Cancer Information & Supports Service provides emotional, practical, and financial support to anyone affected by cancer. Bolton Hospice employs our staff & volunteers, and they are bound to adhere to their policies and procedures.
The Benefits Advice Service is delivered as part of this service in partnership with Bolton Council. The Macmillan Benefits Adviser is employed by Bolton Council but sits within the Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Service. A data sharing agreement is in place between Bolton Council and Bolton Hospice. A copy of the Bolton Council Privacy Notice for the Benefits Service can be found here: https://www.bolton.gov.uk/data-protection-freedom-information/privacy-notices#
The Bolton Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Service is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy policy sets out how we collect, use and protect your personal information. We may change this policy from time to time to ensure it is up to date and in line with current legislation. You can check our current privacy policy on this page at any time and we recommend you do this periodically.
This policy was last updated on 12th March 2025
What information do we collect?
Often, you can access our service without us collecting any of your personal information at all. If we are referring you to another service (which we will only do with your consent), or offering you a high level of support, we may collect the following information about you. This is to enable us to make the referral and/or to provide the information, support and advice you have asked us for:
- NHS Number
- Title
- Name
- Address
- Telephone number
- Email address
- Date of birth / Age
- Photographs of you
- Name of your GP, Consultant and Cancer nurse
- Next of Kin contact details
- National Insurance number and bank details (only in cases where we are claiming a benefit on your behalf)
- Correspondence we have had with you or any other services provided
- Health and social care records and any treatment and care you need and/or have received
- Communications preferences
- Relevant information from other healthcare providers, relatives or those who care for you
- Your feedback or information about your experience of our services.
We might collect this information from you in person, over the phone, by post, email or through our website or social media pages, or from other people who are involved in your care.
When we take a donation from you on behalf of Macmillan, we will process the following information:
- Name
- Address
- Telephone Number
- Gift Aid Declaration
- Amount of Donation
If you are a Macmillan Volunteer, we will process the following information:
- Title
- Name
- Address
- Telephone
- Date of Birth
- Relevant experience and background
- Emergency Contact
- References
- DBS disclosures
- Bereavement status
Why do we process your information?
Bolton Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Service collects and uses personal information to:
- Send clients updates and newsletters about the support services that we offer.
- Provide high quality of support to our clients.
- Enable us to claim benefits or grants on our client’s behalf we may ask for your National Insurance Number and bank details. Bank details will be deleted as soon as we have used them to process your applications.
- Investigate queries, complaints or legal claims
- Manage and audit our services
- Drive improvements within our services
- Provide important statistical information to commissioners and partners for funding and management purposes.
- For research and planning purposes. Your personal information will not be used in an identifiable format for this purpose if you have signed up to the National Data Opt Out. For more information, relating to the National Data Opt Out, click the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out
- Process and share donations that are kindly made to Macmillan.
- Manage our volunteering workforce and ensure that our clients are always safeguarded.
Please note: We will not use your sensitive/personal identifiable information except when it is absolutely essential. This means that when we are processing your information for non-direct care purposes, we will endeavour to either anonymise it which means that all personal identifiable information is removed with no possibility of tracing the information back to you in the future; or pseudonymise it which means that all personal identifiable data is replaced, and highly restricted access is applied to the pseudonymisation code. In addition, we never share, sell, swap or rent your data to third parties for marketing purposes.
How do we store your information?
Your information is held within a secure database and in secure electronic files. Where information has been provided on paper it is transferred to the electronic database as soon as possible and then destroyed. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have effective physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we hold about you, which meet the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit Standards.
How do we process your information lawfully?
The Macmillan Cancer Information & Supports Service will only process information relating to you if there is a lawful basis in line with the legislation and it is necessary for us to do so. The following legal bases are commonly relied upon for the delivery of our services:
- Public Interest– to process personal information to deliver our care and support services. This is underpinned by the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
- Provision of Health and Social Care Services– to process your special category personal information (e.g. health and social care information, race, religion) to deliver our care services.
- Legal Obligation– to manage your personal records in line with data protection legislation and NHSX – Records Management Code of Practice.
- Contract – when you provide us with your information to process a donation on behalf of Macmillan.
- Consent – when you join one to one or group video consultation sessions. You can withdraw consent at any time by leaving the video consultation.
- Consent – when you provide us with consent to send direct marketing via electronic means (email or text message). You can withdraw consent at any time by contacting us on 01204 663 059 or emailing: [email protected]
- Consent – when you provide us with consent process your information when you volunteer for us. You can withdraw consent at any time by contacting us on 01204 663 059 or emailing: [email protected] but this will mean that you will no longer be able to volunteer for the service.
- Legitimate Interest – when you provide us with your contact details, and we send direct marketing via post or telephone. Our interests include promoting our services to our patients, to ensure that you are provided with the maximum possible support. You can opt out of this at any time by contacting us on 01204 663 059 or emailing: [email protected]
Who do we share your information with?
We will share our client’s information with the following services, as needed to provide the support that has been requested:
- Macmillan
- Bolton Macmillan
- Bolton Council
- Department for Work and Pensions
- Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Services
- Her Majesty’s Revenue and Custom Services
- The Pensions Service
- Services within the Council to provide our services e.g. Revenues and Benefits
- GP’s, Specialist Nurses and other members of the support team,
Personally identifiable information will only be shared if you have asked us to do so, we have asked and you have given us consent to do so, we are required to do so by law, or if we have special permission for health or research purposes.
We will comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation when sharing your information or asking another organisation to process it to deliver a service. We always use our secure email account @nhs.net when emailing our partners. When emailing patients we will use a secure encryption. A full list of our partner service providers who your information might be shared with can be found below. We will not share your data with third parties (other than as described above or as required by law): Our partner service providers are required to treat your information as carefully as we do and use it only in the course of the work, they are doing for us.
| Organisation/ Category of Service | Reason we may share your data |
| IT service provider | So that they can provide us with IT support where necessary. Their access to any personal information will be restricted and, on a need, to know basis. |
| Website provider | So that they can provide us with website support where necessary. Their access to any personal information will be restricted and, on a need, to know basis. |
| Database software provider | So that they can provide us with our database software. Their access to any personal information will be restricted and, on a need, to know basis. |
| Archive company | So that when we need to retain paper copies of your personal data (e.g. for regulatory purposes), we can ensure they are securely stored. |
| Confidential waste disposal company | To ensure paper copies of your personal data are securely destroyed when we no longer need to keep them. |
| Video Conferencing Platforms | So that we can communicate with you via video conference, and so that you can join our remote support sessions. |
How long will we keep your information?
We will only retain your information for as long as we need it and our policies regarding this are based on the NHSX – Records Management Code of Practice, the standard retention period for health and social care records is 8 years. For full detail of the health and social care retention schedules that we follow, please click the following link:
Your Rights
You can choose not to provide us with any of the information we have asked you for, however this may mean we are not able to refer you to appropriate services or provide the support you have asked us for. Under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation, you have the following rights relating to personal information that we process about you:
- Right to be Informed
- Right to Access (Subject Access Request / Access to Health Records)
- Right to Rectification
- Right to Erasure (Right to be forgotten)
- Right to Object
- Right to Object to Direct Marketing
- Right to withdraw your consent at any time (when we have asked for it)
- Right to Restrict Processing
- Right to Data Portability
- Right not to be subject to Automated Decision Making including Profiling
* Please note: not all rights may apply to your individual circumstances. An example of this could be when you would like to have your records erased, but they have been collected in order to meet a legal obligation, or if you request access to records that would cause serious physical or mental harm to you or others.
If you would like to exercise any of the rights above, please write to us at Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Service, Giles House at Bolton Hospice, Chorley New Road, Bolton BL1 4QT or email [email protected]
Visitors to our website
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping baskets, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website, which offers guidance for all modern browsers: https://www.aboutcookies.org/
Emailing and Texting
If your preference is to communicate with us via text or email, we will not share any sensitive data over these lines of communication unless you have specifically consented to this. Please note that sharing confidential and personal information with the team via email and text message is not a secure channel of communication.
Complaints
We take any complaints we receive about the collection and use of personal information very seriously. We would encourage you to bring it to our attention if you think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. You can make a complaint at any time by contacting us (see Queries section below).
If you think our collection or use of personal information is unfair, misleading, or inappropriate or if you have concerns about the security of your personal information, you also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at the following address:
Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire.
SK9 5AF
By Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Via their Website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Queries
If you have any queries or concerns about this policy please call 01204 663 059 or email: