Terms & Conditions

Copyright Portsmouth City Council (designed by Divine Aesthetic)

Images across site courtesy of Claire Sambrook and Vernon Nash Photography.

Disclaimer

The council website forms one part of our public provision of information and interactive services. The website or pages within should not be regarded as the complete service offered by the council.We make every effort to keep our website information precise and up to date; but Portsmouth City Council cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions or liability for any inconvenience, loss or damage, however arising, from the use of, or reliance of this information.

We do not offer any direct information but Portsmouth City Council will usually link the visitor to a site that can. Whilst we endeavour to ensure that linked sites are accurate and reliable we cannot accept any liability for the accuracy or content of these sites. A link listing should not be taken as endorsement of any kind and the council does not necessarily endorse the views expressed within the linked site. We have no control over the servers delivering linked pages and therefore cannot guarantee availability.

If you have any queries or doubts regarding the content, products, services or privacy practices of other websites, feel free to contact us.

Privacy policy

When you visit our website to view pages, download forms etc. We automatically store only the following information:

• the domain name (if available) and IP address from which you accessed our site
• the date and time you visited
• the pages you viewed
• the type of browser and operating system you used.

This information enables us to analyse usage of our site and help us to improve the website service we offer. This monitoring does not include personally identifiable information. Most web site servers on the Internet will store this information every time you visit their site. Personal information collected from users of this site will not be disclosed to third parties. We will not sell, share or rent this information to any person, persons or organisation.

Data protection – Privacy Notice

Portsmouth City Council will process your personal information appropriately and legally in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the National Fraud Initiative and other relevant legislation. The details you provide will be held in a secure system or database and will only be shared with other organisations where the law allows.

The Portsmouth Information Sharing Framework which sets out the conditions under which we will share information with other organisations is available on the council’s website. The council may share your information with relevant departments to help develop new services or improve existing services.

You should be aware that we may be required to disclose your personal information without your consent for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime/fraud or apprehending and prosecuting offenders (for example to the Police, Cabinet Office or Department for Work and Pension or as part of the National Fraud Initiative) or where we have a statutory duty to do so.

For more information follow the link to read our National Fraud Initiative page.

Privacy notice – Public Health

Public Health Portsmouth improves and protects the health of the whole population in Portsmouth. We do this in a number of different ways. For example, we:

• Work with other departments in the city council, the NHS, and other local and national organisations to make changes that will improve and protect the health of the population as a whole, for example to reduce social or environmental risks to health
• Use a range of information from different places to understand health and wellbeing issues and trends for the local population as a whole and for different communities or areas of the city. This allows us to allocate our scarce resources more effectively
• Pay for public health services that are provided for local people, for example the Wellbeing Service that supports people to have healthier lifestyles.

What information we use and why

To do our job we need information about the health and wellbeing of people in Portsmouth – both now, and how this might change in the future. This information comes from lots of different places. Some is data we collect ourselves through the services that we pay for or provide (like the Wellbeing Service), and some is data which comes from our partners in other parts of the local authority, the NHS, and other national or local organisations. For example, data from many of these sources can help us to understand patterns of heart disease and what we can do locally to stop people developing heart disease, and improve care for those with heart disease.

In bringing together this information we have one aim – to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of people in Portsmouth.

The kinds of information we use

Much of the information we use is in aggregate form. In other words, it is made up of statistics that relate to groups of people rather than to individuals. For example, we use aggregate data to produce statistics to help the public sector locally to identify local priorities to improve and protect the community we serve.

We also use data that relates to groups of individuals. We might also need to link different sources of information together. For example, we might link data about how many medical problems a person has with hospital admissions and with social care data to better understand the impacts of health problems on the individual now, and to plan services in the future. When we do need to use data relating to individuals, we remove as much of the detail as possible that could identify an individual. For example, we replace date of birth with age in years and home addresses with codes that cover larger geographical areas.

Sometimes we will need to use personal information, and where we do so we will make it clear when we collect personal information why we need this and what we intend to do with it.

How we protect the information we use

We take our legal and professional obligations to protect the confidentiality of personal information very seriously. As well as limiting the amount of personal information we hold, we make sure that our staff can only see information that is essential to their job. Some of the personal information we use is held on paper and some is held on computers. In both cases, we have processes to securely protect these records and to permanently delete any information that we no longer need to hold.

Who we share information with

Much of the information we produce is in the form of anonymous statistics published through our website and in reports and papers to the Health and Wellbeing Board and other partners. We never publish information that could be used to directly identify an individual. We only share information about individuals when the direct consent of individuals has been obtained or when there is a clear basis in the law for that information to be shared.

Patients have the right to object to their data being shared.

Further queries

Along with other council departments, Public Health Portsmouth follows the principles and standards for information sharing and data protection which are set out in the Portsmouth Information Sharing Framework (http://data.hampshirehub.net/def/concept/folders/themes/jsna/portsmouth-jsna/jsna-background-information-sharing-framework-and-technical-information/information-sharing-framework), as well as national legislation, guidelines etc.

This privacy notice was written to be clear and concise. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of Public Health Portsmouth’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 sent to the address below.

You may also ask to find out if we hold any personal information by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998 using the contact details below.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 14 June 2016.

Head of Public Health Intelligence
Public Health Portsmouth
Portsmouth City Council
Floor 2, Core 3/4
Civic Offices
Guildhall Square
Portsmouth, PO1 2AL

Email publichealth@portsmouthcc.gov.uk