Patient Information & Health and Care Research

As an NHS organisation we use personally-identifiable information to conduct research to improve health, care and services.  As a publicly-funded organisation, we have to ensure that it is in the public interest when we use personally-identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research.  This means that when you agree to take part in a research study, we will use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse the research study.  Your rights to access, change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate.  If you withdraw from the study, we will keep in the information about your that we have already obtained.  To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible.

Health and Care research should serve the public interest, which means that we have to demonstrate that our research serves the interests of society as a whole.  We do this by following the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer who will investigate the matter.  If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Our Data Protection Officer is Rebecca Bradley and you can contact her at rebecca.bradley2@york.nhs.uk

Follow this link to find out more about how patient information may be used for research.