Health and Care Experience Survey 2025 to 2026: privacy notice

This is a summary of our full privacy notice. It gives you information about completing the Health and Care Experience Survey and about how we use the information you give us. 

The survey asks about your experiences of care.

If you need help filling in the survey, you can ask family or friends for help, or phone the free helpline on: 0800 783 1775.

Taking part in the survey is voluntary. You do not have to answer any question you do not want to. You will be asked to skip questions that do not apply to you.

The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland run the survey. IQVIA print, post and collect survey questionnaires on our behalf. IQVIA is a business that collects feedback from people who have used healthcare services. Only PHS and IQVIA will have your contact details. None of the staff involved in your care will know whether you have filled in the survey.

Why this survey is needed

The survey results help us understand people’s experience of health and care services. 

The survey asks about the following things:

• what your GP practice is like
• what using Out of Hours healthcare is like
• care, support and help with everyday living 
• your caring responsibilities, if you have any

We can use this information to improve care by finding out what we are doing well and where we could do better.

Who has access to information that identifies you

Only Public Health Scotland and IQVIA have access to your name and address. 

IQVIA has only been given your name and address so that they can print and post the survey pack to you. They will destroy this information once the work is finished.

The people involved in your care will not know whether you took part in the survey.

How your survey responses are used

A small number of named people in Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Government, and IQVIA will have access to your survey responses.

Public Health Scotland have information on who is registered with a GP practice. They will link your survey responses to some of this information so that we can analyse what might affect your care. Your name and address will not be linked to the survey responses.

Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Government will use the survey responses to publish a report in spring 2026. You will be able to read it on the Health and Care Experience survey’s website.

We will make sure that no one can be identified from the results. We follow strict rules about this. The rules we follow are the Office for National Statistics and PHS statistical disclosure control protocols.

How your additional comments are used

The survey asks if you have any comments about your care. 

We will make comments anonymous by removing any details that might identify you or someone who cared for you. For example, we will remove staff names, details of any health problems you may have or any tests you have had.

We will share the anonymised comments with your GP practice so that they can use them to improve services.

It will be several months before the comments are read. The Scottish Government analysts reading the comments will not know who wrote the comment. You should phone 111 or 999 if you urgently need care.

We may share them with charities or academic researchers for further analysis. They will only be shared if the relevant NHS research, ethics and governance groups allow it.

How long your information is stored for

IQVIA will destroy names and addresses once the work to collect the data is finished. They will destroy any paper copies of returned surveys after scanning them. IQVIA will hold scanned copies of completed questionnaires until April 2026 before destroying them.

IQVIA will store the survey responses until April 2026. The Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland will store the survey responses for as long as they need them. This is so that more analysis can be done if needed.

Public Health Scotland will keep a file that can be used to link the survey responses to other health information for as long as it is needed. This file will be stored separately from the survey responses. This file is needed to allow survey responses to be linked with other data for analysis. This would only be done if the relevant NHS research, ethics and governance groups allowed it.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you and we will not charge you for this
• ask us to correct any personal data we hold about you that is wrong or out of date
• ask that we delete the personal data we hold about you
• withdraw consent to us using your personal data in the ways you’ve said we can
• ask that we send all the personal data we hold on you to another company or organisation
• ask us to stop using your personal data until you’re happy it is correct and being used in a way you are comfortable with
• object to the ways we use personal data
• complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the ways we gather or use personal data

To do any of the above, you can email us at: phs.dataprotection@phs.scot 

Further information

If you do not wish to be contacted about this survey again, please call the free survey helpline on 0800 783 1775. 

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy or information we hold about you by emailing us at: patientexperience@gov.scot