New data protection legislation (GDPR) is due to come into force on 25th May 2018 and aims to protect the privacy of all EU citizens and prevent data breaches. It will apply to all public and private organisations processing personal data.

We wanted to take this opportunity to remind customers about the importance of removing any confidential or sensitive patient data when communicating with us, particularly for support cases.

How to decide if the information is confidential and/or sensitive

• Does the communication contain personal information?
  • Anything that would enable the person to be identified e.g. name, address, telephone number etc. This is mainly patient data but could also include home email or telephone numbers for GPs.
• Does it contain any sensitive information linked to a patient identifier?
  • This includes diagnosis, treatment history, personal notes etc. For instance, this may include a screen shot of a patient screen or history screen from DAWN including treatment plan details.

Please do not send personal or sensitive patient information to us.

 Any personal data sent to us in an unencrypted format is a breach of your organisation’s Information Governance procedures and also Data Protection legislation.

• If the issue you need help with is a generic one, please provide a screen shot of a test patient.
• If the issue relates to a specific patient, you can do one of the following:
  • Email us the hospital number only
  • Ask us to phone you so that you can provide the details directly to us over the phone
  • Take a screenshot of the patient record and open it in a program such as Paint, cover the identifiable data, save the file and send it to us
  • Print out a screen shot and obscure all sensitive patient information, scan it and send it to us.

Please note that if we receive communication from you that contains personal identifiable data, we will destroy the message either electronically or via shredding hard copies and this may delay us providing the support that you need.

If you need any further information, please contact your Trust Governance department or see the Information Commissioner’s website at: https://ico.org.uk/.

You can also contact a member of the 4S DAWN team on privacy@4s-dawn.com.