Privacy Policy

RUHX (formerly known as The Forever Friends Appeal) is the working name of Royal United Hospital Charitable Fund) has been formed under an RUH Deed dated 10 September 1996 as amended by a Supplemental Deed dated 9 December 2009. It is registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales (Registered number 1058323) and the Fundraising Regulator.

As a charity we are committed to protecting your personal information and privacy. This Privacy Policy describes exactly how we collect and use your personal information.

The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust is viewed as a connected organisation by virtue of its position as Trustee of the Charity. There are no other connected organisations.

Why we collect personal information about you?

As a charity we need to collect and maintain information about you for financial purposes, your giving history and preferences, areas of the hospitals you choose to support and other information that allows the charity to interact with you to provide the best possible supporter experience from the charity.

This personal information can be held in a variety of formats, including paper records, electronically on computer systems, in video and audio files.

What is our legal basis for processing personal information about you?

In some cases, we will only use your personal information where we have your consent or because we need to use it in order to fulfil a contract with you (for example, because you have placed an order on our website).

However, there are other lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information and one of those is called ‘legitimate interests’. This means that the reason that we are processing information is because there is a legitimate interest for us to process your information to help us to achieve charitable objectives.

Whenever we process your Personal Information under the ‘legitimate interest’ lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests and will not process your personal information if we feel that there is an imbalance.

Some examples of where we have a legitimate interest to process your Personal information are where we contact you about our work via post, use your personal information for data analytics, conducting research to better understand who our supporters are, improving our services, for our legal purposes (for example, dealing with complaints and claims), or for complying with guidance from the Charity Commission.

What personal information do we need to collect about you and how do we obtain it?

If you are kind enough to support us, for example, by making a donation, volunteering, registering to fundraise, signing up for an event or buying something from us, we will usually collect the following information:

Your name.
Your contact details (postal and email addresses, landline and mobile telephone numbers).
Your communication preferences to ensure you get the information you want, when and how you want it.
Your date of birth to enable us to accurately identify records. It is also used, with other data, if access to personal information is requested.
Your bank or credit card details for donations. These details are destroyed once the transaction has taken place. All online financial transactions will be encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).
If you are taking part in a high risk event we may also ask for sensitive health information, passport details, next of kin, insurance details.

In some instances we may ask for addition information which is not mandatory, however, it will help us improve our service to you and our other supporters:

If you are comfortable telling us, we would really like to know why you have decided to donate to us.
In what ways you would consider supporting the hospitals.
If you have previously had contact with us we would really like to know how you feel about the level of service you received from the charity.

Social Media
Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.

Once you have provided your information we will fulfil your requests in the following ways:

Contact you in the way you have requested.
Provide you with the information on our work and activities, services or products or information you have requested, where you have consented to being contacted.
Send information, updates on Campaigns, Appeals and events that we feel may be of interest to you, where you have consented to being contacted.
Administer your donation or support your fundraising activities, including processing Gift Aid.
Keep a record of your relationship with us.
To contact you where you have been identified as a contact person for an organisation, such as a school (if we obtain your contact details in this way, we will only use them to contact you in your capacity as a representative of that organisation).
For internal record keeping relating to any donations, feedback or complaints.
Understand how we can improve our services, products or information and communication with you.
To invite you to participate in voluntary surveys or research.
We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Where it is required or authorised by law.

You can also update or change any of your communication preferences at any time including telling us that you do not want us to contact you by various types of communication by:

Indicating that you do not wish to receive email communication by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the end of our e-newsletters.
You can email hello@ruhx.org.uk, telephone us on 01225 825691, visit ruhx.org.uk/consent or complete a form we may have sent you.

What do we do with your personal information?

We will mainly use supporters’ data to:

Provide supporters with the services, products or information they have asked for
Administer supporters’ donations
Keep a record of supporters’ relationships with Royal United Hospital Charitable Fund (incl. RUHX)
Ensure we know how supporters prefer to be contacted
Understand how we can improve our services, products or information.

We undertake regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors.

What we may do with your personal information

The personal information we collect about you may also be used to:

Provide data analysis, wealth screening and targeting communications
To help continue the tradition of philanthropic support of the hospitals, we use profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our supporters. We do this because it allows us to target our resources effectively, understand the background of the people who support us and helps us to make appropriate requests to supporters who may be able and willing to give more than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise more funds, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would. We may gather information from publicly available sources, for example, Companies House and the Electoral Register. We sometimes use the internet to find out about your interests and causes you support, membership of clubs and associations, average house value in your area, typical earnings in a given sector in order to better understand your interests and preferences so we can contact you with the most relevant communications. We may carry out wealth screening (prospect research), a process which uses trusted third-party partners to automate some of this work. They may also use major industry directories, newspapers and journals. This process helps us to make appropriate requests to those who may be able and willing to give more than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise more funds, sooner, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would. We therefore believe that using your personal information in this way is necessary for our legitimate interest of efficiently raising income to support the hospitals. Although there will be some impact on your rights, freedoms and expectations we do not consider it will cause undue harm because we have informed you of what we would do, and why. Targeting our resources effectively and efficiently is an issue donors consistently tell us is a key priority for them.
We’d really like to know more about you and may send you a questionnaire or ask to come and meet you.
Promote the charities work though Marketing
With your consent, we will contact you to let you know about the impact we are making and to ask for donations or other support. We make it easy for you to tell us how you want us to communicate, in a way that suits you. Our forms have clear communication preference questions and we include information on how to change your preferences (e.g. opt out) on each piece of marketing we send you.
We also occasionally send a Supporter Survey which we may also send you as a way of finding out your communication preferences.
If you don’t want to hear from us any more, please just let us know and we will update your records and we will no longer contact you. You can email hello@ruhx.org.uk, telephone us on 01225 825691, visit ruhx.org.uk/consent or complete a form we may have sent you.
We have not, and will not sell or share personal details with third parties for the purposes of marketing.
If we run an event in partnership with another organisation, your details may need to be shared, for example our over sea’s treks or collaborative events with other charities. We will be very clear about what will happen to your data when you register.
We only share data where we are required by law or with carefully selected partners who do work for us, for example, mailing companies who send out large mailings for us because we cannot do ourselves. All our partners are required by their contract with us to treat your data as carefully as we would, to only use it as instructed, and to allow us to check that they do this.
Carry our Due Diligence
We also use publicly available sources to carry out due diligence on donors in line with Charity Commission guidance and to meet money laundering regulations.

Who do we share your information with and why?

We use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf, for example, when we send out a large mailing like our newsletter. We do comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them, and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal data we have shared.

Some of our suppliers may run their operations outside the European Economic Area (EEA). After Brexit, the UK may be outside the EEA. Although companies may not be subject to same data protection laws as companies based in the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law. By submitting your personal information to us you agree to the transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the EEA.

We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.
We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

How do we maintain your records?

We hold and process your information in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 (subject to Parliamentary approval) as amended by the GDPR 2016, as explained above. In addition, everyone working for the NHS must comply with the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality and various national and professional standards and requirements.
We have a duty to:

maintain full and accurate records of the care we provide to you;
keep records about you confidential and secure;
provide information in a format that is accessible to you.

Use of Email – As a Charity we give the option to communicate with supporters via email. Please be aware that the we cannot guarantee the security of this information whilst in transit, and by requesting this service you are accepting this risk.

What are your rights?

If we need to use your personal information for any reasons beyond those stated above, we will discuss this with you and ask for your explicit consent. The Data Protection Act 2018 (subject to parliamentary approval) gives you certain rights.

Where possible we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date, for example, the Post Office’s National Change of Address database and information provided to us by other organisations as described above. We really appreciate it if you let us know if your contact details change.

You have a right to ask us to stop processing your personal data, and if it is not necessary for the purpose you provided it to us for (e.g. processing your donation or registering you for an event) we will do so immediately.

You have a right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. If there are any discrepancies in the information we provide, please let us know and we will correct them.
If you wish to raise a complaint or have any questions on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter.

Data Protection Officer

Please contact the Head of Information Governance:
Information Governance Team
Health Informatics Service
First Floor, Apley House (E5)
Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
Combe Park
Bath
BA1 3NG

Or via ruh-tr.IGQueries@nhs.net

Information Commissioner’s Officer

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the body that regulates the Trust under Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation, ico.org.uk. If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the. ICO at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number
Email: casework@ico.org.uk

Cookies

‘Cookie’ is a name for a small file, usually of letters and numbers, which is downloaded onto your device, like your computer, mobile phone or table when you visit a website.

They let websites recognise your device, so that the sites can work more effectively, and also gather information about how you use the site. A cookie, by itself, can’t be used to identify you.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you come to our website and also allows us to improve the user experience.

The cookies we use

We use the categorisation set out by the International Chamber of Commerce in their UK Cookie Guide.

We use all four categories of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies are essential for you to move around our website and to use its features, like our shopping basket and your account.
Performance cookies collect anonymous information about how you use our site, like which pages are visited most.
Functionality cookies collect anonymous information that remember choices you make to improve your experience, like your text size or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog.
Targeting or advertising cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests. As such if you visit the Mind website you may then be more likely to see adverts about Mind’s work on other websites as your browsing suggests that this is an area of interest.

No cookies, please

You can opt out of all our cookies (except the strictly necessary ones). Find out how to control and delete cookies in your browser.

But, if you choose to refuse all cookies, our website may not function for you as we would like it to.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.