Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy applies to all services offered by Sunbird Care ("we," "our," or "us"), including our website, care services, and any interactions you may have with our staff. We respect your right to privacy and are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of our visitors, clients, and their families. This Privacy Policy outlines the information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your personal data.

2. Information We Collect

We collect personal information in several ways to provide and improve our services to you. This information may include:

2.1 Information You Provide to Us

• Personal Information: Name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address, and other contact details.

• Medical Information: Health conditions, medications, treatment history, and other health-related information necessary to provide appropriate care services.

• Financial Information: Bank account details, payment information, and funding arrangements for care services.

• Emergency Contact Information: Names and contact details of family members, representatives, or other emergency contacts.

2.2 Information We Collect Automatically

• Website Usage Data: IP address, browser type, operating system, pages visited, time spent on our website, and other analytics data.

• Cookie Information: Data collected through cookies and similar technologies to enhance your browsing experience. For more details, please see our Cookie Policy section below.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

• Healthcare Providers: With your consent, we may receive information from hospitals, doctors, or other healthcare professionals to coordinate your care.

• Local Authorities and Funding Bodies: Information related to care assessments, funding eligibility, and care requirements.

• References and Background Checks: For employment applicants, we collect information from references and perform background checks as required by law.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Providing Care Services: To assess your care needs, create personalized care plans, coordinate care delivery, and maintain appropriate records.

• Communication: To contact you regarding your care, appointments, service updates, or to respond to your inquiries.

• Billing and Administration: To process payments, manage funding arrangements, and maintain our business records.

• Quality Assurance: To monitor and improve the quality of our services, including through feedback and satisfaction surveys.

• Legal Compliance: To comply with relevant laws, regulations, and professional standards in the care sector.

• Employment Processing: To evaluate job applications, conduct interviews, and manage employment relationships.

• Website Improvement: To analyze usage patterns and improve the functionality and user experience of our website.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

We process your personal information under the following legal bases:

• Consent: Where you have given clear consent for us to process your personal information for a specific purpose.

• Contractual Necessity: Where processing is necessary to fulfill our contractual obligations to you as part of our care services.

• Legal Obligation: Where processing is necessary to comply with our legal obligations under care regulations, health and safety laws, and other applicable legislation.

• Legitimate Interests: Where processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, such as improving our services or ensuring the security of our systems, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.

• Vital Interests: In emergency situations, we may process your data to protect your life or physical integrity, or that of another person.

For special categories of personal data, such as health information, we process this information where:

• You have given explicit consent;

• Processing is necessary for the provision of health or social care;

• Processing is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent;

• Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

5. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We may share your personal information with the following categories of recipients:

• Care Staff: Our employees and care workers who need access to your information to provide care services.

• Healthcare Professionals: Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and other healthcare providers involved in your care.

• Regulatory Bodies: Care Quality Commission (CQC) and other regulatory authorities as required by law.

• Local Authorities and Funding Bodies: For the purpose of arranging and monitoring care services and processing funding arrangements.

• Service Providers: Third-party service providers who help us operate our business, such as IT service providers, payment processors, and professional advisors.

• Emergency Services: In emergency situations, we may share information with emergency services to protect your vital interests.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. Data Security

We have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorized way, altered, or disclosed. These measures include:

• Encryption of sensitive personal data;

• Regular security assessments and testing of our systems;

• Staff training on data protection and confidentiality;

• Access controls to restrict data access to authorized personnel only;

• Secure disposal of paper records and IT equipment.

We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

For care service records, we typically retain information for:

• Care plans and service records: 8 years after the last service provision;

• Financial records: 7 years for tax and accounting purposes;

• Employment records: 6 years after employment ends;

• Job applicant information: 6 months for unsuccessful candidates.

In some circumstances, we may anonymize your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have rights regarding your personal data, including:

• Right to Access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

• Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you.

• Right to Erasure: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request that we delete your personal information.

• Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we transfer your personal information to you or to a third party in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.

• Right to Object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes or where we are relying on a legitimate interest.

• Rights Related to Automated Decision Making: You have rights related to automated decision making and profiling.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details provided in the "Contact Us" section below. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data. This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

9. Cookies Policy

Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit our website. They help us provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allow us to improve our site.

We use the following types of cookies:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website.

• Analytical/Performance Cookies: These allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it.

• Functionality Cookies: These are used to recognize you when you return to our website.

• Targeting Cookies: These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited, and the links you have followed.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer:

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 (https://ico.org.uk). However, we would appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.