You can find out more about research and about general use of patient information on the Health Research Authority (HRA) website.
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 the information about you 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 on information.governance@hhft.nhs.uk 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). Further information about how the Trust protects your personal information and contact details can be found here
