West Suffolk NHS Trust Library and Information Centre Privacy Policy
If you have any questions about this policy please email library@wsh.nhs.uk or telephone 01284 713112.
Information that we collect
We store certain personal information about you when you join the library. We store this information in our library management system, known as ELMS, which is part of a consortium of NHS library services across the east of England.
In order to ensure that library staff can contact you and easily identify you in the system we store your name, home address, email address(es), phone number, organisation, department, work location, job title and role. This information is added to ELMS on your behalf when you join the library.
Sharing your information with others
We work with external organisations to:
• store the information held on ELMS
• develop the software and fix bugs
• manage email delivery for things like overdue notices
The external organisations that we work with are:
• NHS library services based in the east of England ( a list of these services is available on request from the library)
• KOHA who are the developers and suppliers of the software used in ELMS
• Health Education East of England who fund the subscription for ELMS and work with us and KOHA to utilise and develop the system to its potential.
These organisations are provided with access to your information in order to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
Your information is also used by the library in order to deliver the services that you have requested from us. Often we will add or update your information (at your request).
We want to ensure that your library record can be transferred from one library service to another as you move between organisations or if you choose to borrow books from another library service. In some circumstances access to your information will be transferred and you will receive email notification if this happens.
Anonymised information will be used for reporting on usage of library services.
We will share your information with others where required to do so by law. We will never sell your information to anyone, or share it in a way not described in this notice without your permission.
Further information about the lawful basis on which we process and share your data is available on request.
We will email you in order to communicate with you about services you have requested (including requesting your evaluation to help improve services). We will also email you periodically to check that the information we have is up-to-date.
You may choose to receive additional emails including bulletins, newsletters or information about your library service. Receiving these additional emails is based on opt-in consent that we will ask you to provide when you sign up for library membership.
We may transfer your contact information from ELMS to another electronic library management system in order to communicate with you about services that you request such as document supply or book loans.
Information security
Technical safeguards, such as firewalls and antivirus software are used to help ensure that your information is kept safe and only disclosed to people who are authorised to view it. Any data transferred via email is encrypted if not sent via NHS email. We back-up your data daily and we review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorised access to systems.
We restrict access to personal information to employees of West Suffolk NHS Trust, library staff and other partners who need to know that information in order to process it for us (as described above). Staff at these organisations are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations.
Deleting your information
We will keep your information for as long as you are making use of NHS library and knowledge services and until your privilege on your library account expires (two years for permanent staff or the relevant contractual period for students and temporary staff). If your privilege expires and there has been no loan activity on your library account, your account will be deleted. This means that if you have requested articles from us, but not borrowed any books, that information will be deleted. All previous book loans will also be deleted. If you return to the trust after a period of time, you will need to re-register for membership of the library.
The system will only store as much information about you as is required, and will securely destroy any personal information about you when it is no longer of use.
Compliance and cooperation with regulatory authorities
We regularly review our compliance with our Privacy Policy and adhere to the UK General Data Protection Regulations.
Contact us
If you have any concerns related to this privacy policy, or have queries about the use of your personal information, please contact library@wsh.nhs.uk