Best Start maternity and neonatal care staff survey: privacy notice

About this privacy notice

This privacy notice explains how we collect and use your personal data, and outlines your rights under data protection law. Personal data is information that identifies you in some way, like your gender or your age.

Scottish Government is the ‘data controller’ for this survey. That means that it decides what data is collected from you.

Scottish Government is also the ‘data processor’ for this survey. That means that it is responsible for collecting information from you, storing it securely, and using it to write a report about the findings.

About the Best Start maternity and neonatal care staff survey

The survey is for NHS staff working in maternity or neonatal care in Scotland. It is being carried out as part of the evaluation of The Best Start: Five-year plan for maternity and neonatal care.

The survey asks about your views and experiences at work. It also asks some questions about yourself, such as your role at work, what board you work in, your sex and whether you are disabled. You do not have to answer any of these questions you don’t want to. This information about you is collected to help us understand how staff’s views and experiences might vary according to their characteristics. It also helps us understand what type of staff have and have not taken part.

The only mandatory questions are at the start of the survey, which check that only people eligible to take the survey participate.

The survey is designed to be anonymous. You will not be asked for your name or contact details. There is a small chance that the combination of different information you provide would make it possible in theory for you to be identified. However, no individual-level data will be shared outside of Scottish Government or included in the final report.

Why we are conducting this survey

The survey will help us to understand how Best Start has been delivered across Scotland, and how it is going for staff. It will also help us understand what can be improved.

We will use the findings from the survey together with other information we have gathered, to write a report about how well Best Start has been delivered.

Specifically, this survey is a means for Scottish Ministers to monitor how well they are fulfilling their duty, under Section 1 of the NHS (Scotland) Act 1978, to continue to promote a comprehensive and integrated health service that is designed to secure:

• improvement in the physical and mental health of the people of Scotland
• the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness, and for that purpose to provide or secure the effective provision of services in accordance with the 1978 Act.

Lawful basis

We conduct this survey as a ‘public task in the public interest'. Our legal basis is that the use of this data is necessary for archiving, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes

How we use and protect your information

Only Scottish Government staff will have access to the individual response that you provide. Scottish Government will treat the information you give it in the strictest confidence. It will abide at all times by the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Individual survey responses will be collected, stored and analysed using a secure survey platform called Questback. Questback has been approved for use by Scottish Government’s cyber security team. It is a European-based company which uses ISO-certified data centres hosted in Germany. Once all the data has been analysed, it will be saved securely on Scottish Government systems and deleted from Questback.

The information provided by everyone who responds to the survey will be looked at together and used to write a report. This report will be published on the Scottish Government website. We also plan to publish tables with quantitative data about the survey responses. No individuals will be identifiable in the responses dataset or in the reported results. 

No access to your responses will be given to NHS Boards or anyone outside of Scottish Government. We will not tell your colleagues whether or not you take part.

How long we store your information

All survey responses are stored securely and confidentially under the terms of Data Protection legislation.

The survey response dataset will be stored by Scottish Government for as long as it is useful, for example to allow additional analysis such as time trends or more detailed analysis of particular aspects of the survey responses. This retention will be reviewed every year in line with Scottish Government data retention policy to ensure that it is still appropriate to hold the data.

Your rights

Taking part in the survey is voluntary. Completing the survey gives you an opportunity to provide feedback on your experience of working in maternity or neonatal care. You don't have to answer any questions you don't want to.

Data Protection legislation gives rights to individuals in respect of the personal data that organisations hold about them. These include:

• accessing a copy of the information an organisation holds about them
• correcting any information they think is inaccurate or incomplete
• restricting the use of their information in certain circumstances
• objecting to use of data that is likely to cause or is causing damage or distress
• asking for their data to be deleted
• complaining to a supervisory authority if they are unhappy with how their data has been used

For more information about how to exercise these rights, please see the contact details outlined below.

Questions or queries

If anything in this privacy notice is not clear or you would like us to talk you through the privacy notice or how you can exercise your rights, please contact the Maternal and Infant Health team mailbox at Scottish Government:

Email: MaternalandInfantHealth@gov.scot

Post: Area 2B South, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ

If you have questions or concerns about how your personal data is being collected or used, or if you believe that Scottish Government has not complied with your data protection rights, you can contact the Data Protection Officer. If you have questions about your personal data held by the data controller you can also contact the Data Protection Officer:

By email: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot

By post: Victoria Quay, Commercial Street, Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ

Complaints

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. If you are unhappy with the way your personal data is being processed, you can report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO or by calling the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.