At HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS, we are committed to protecting your personal information and privacy. We comply with all legislation regarding the collection and use of personal data.  This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and use your personal information.

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time so please check back periodically. We will notify you of any significant changes by putting a notice on our website.

If you have any queries about this Privacy Notice, please contact us on 01495 717277

HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS

In this Privacy Notice, ‘HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS’ means HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS (registered as a charity in England & Wales RCN: 517724) with our offices Festival Drive, Ebbw Vale, NP23 8XF.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, registration reference Z7418484.

When We Collect Personal Information

We collect personal information about you when you interact with us (e.g. in person, by phone or online) in order to:

• use any of our specialist clinical, educational or other support services
• be acknowledged as the next of kin of one of our patients
• apply to work or volunteer with us
• enquire about our activities and services
• make a donation or gift
• participate in a HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS-organised event
• donate to (or buy from) one of our shops
• participate in our Lottery

We may also receive information about you from third parties that we work with or support, for example independent event organisers, fundraising sites like JustGiving, Local Hospice Lottery (our lottery partner), our payroll and pension providers.

The Personal Information We Collect

Patients and Family Members

The types of information we might collect from patients and family members would include names, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and details of next of kin, as well as medical information and other special category data where this is necessary to provide care, support or related services.

This information is collected for the purposes of providing clinical and specialist palliative care to those referred to us and could be used and shared between departments within HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS as well as with other health and social care service providers under strict guidelines.  We may also receive information from the NHS which is only shared with us under strict guidelines.

We may collect special category data including, but not limited to, information about race or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, health, disability and family circumstances for care, equality monitoring, statistical and reporting purposes. Where information is used for statistical and reporting purposes, it will be anonymised wherever possible so that individuals are not identifiable.

Supporters 

The types of information we might collect from supporters include names, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, next of kin, communication preferences, credit or debit card details, and whether they are a tax payer so that we can claim Gift Aid.  We also hold records of specific donations and fundraising efforts alongside the communications that we have had.

We will not store credit or debit card details after they have been processed.

We do not collect special category data relating to our supporters unless there is a specific and lawful reason for doing so, for example where we need to make reasonable adjustments or provide support for participation in an event.

Employees and Volunteers

The types of information we might collect from employees and volunteers include names, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, next of kin, employment history, disabilities relevant to their employment or volunteering role, and character or employment references.

We may collect special category data including, but not limited to, information about race or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, health, disability and family circumstances for equality monitoring, statistical and reporting purposes. Where information is used for statistical and reporting purposes, it will be anonymised wherever possible so that individuals are not identifiable.

Lawful Basis and Purpose

Patients and Family Members

The lawful basis for processing patient, family and next of kin data will depend on the purpose of the processing and may include providing health and social care services, complying with legal obligations, protecting vital interests, performing a task carried out in the public interest, or pursuing legitimate interests where appropriate. Where we process special category data, including health information, we will also identify and rely on a relevant condition under Article 9 of the UK GDPR and, where required, the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you, a relative or a friend, are cared for or supported by HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS, the special category information you provide to us will be used only for the purposes of offering access to and providing you with our specialist services, including bereavement support, for training our staff, for safeguarding, or for monitoring the quality of our services. HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS will not disclose your personal information to any third party unless there is a lawful basis for doing so, including in the following circumstances:

• to health and social care professionals and organisations involved in the provision of your care, and always within the appropriate regulations governing sharing of your health and social care records.
• exceptionally, to professional bodies or otherwise as required by law, regulation or codes of practice

We will not use your information for other purposes without your permission. If you tell us about your own experience with terminal illness or the experience of someone else we will explain how we will use that information. If you don’t want us to use such information for other purposes or change your mind at any time, it will not affect any services we provide.

Supporters

The lawful basis for processing data held on recent supporters, including supporters who have donated within the past three years, is generally our legitimate interests in raising charitable funds to support the delivery of specialist palliative care in Blaenau Gwent, unless another lawful basis is more appropriate for a particular purpose. We will balance our interests against your rights, freedoms and reasonable expectations and will respect your communication preferences and any objection to marketing or fundraising communications.

We use the personal information collected from you for a number of purposes, including:

• to provide you with services, products or information you have requested;
• to process and acknowledge donations or payments we have received from you;
• to fulfil sales made online or through our shops;
• to record and administer your participation in events for which you have registered;
• to record your gifts of money or the sale of goods you donated to our shops and, if appropriate, to reclaim tax paid on these through the Gift Aid scheme;
• to keep a record and breakdown of our fundraising income which we may analyse to help us improve income in future years;
• for a period of three years following your most recent donation, to send you newsletters and fundraising information by post unless you choose not to receive these. We will only send electronic marketing communications where we have your consent or where the charitable purposes soft opt-in applies.

We may also use your details:

• to invite voluntary participation in research or surveys;
• to analyse and improve our work, services, activities, products or information

(including our website) or for our internal records;

• for fraud prevention, credit risk reduction or otherwise as required by law or regulation;
• to improve our communication with you and to contact you in the most appropriate and relevant way.

When you use our secure online donation or payment pages you will be directed to a specialist supplier company who will receive your credit card number and contact information to process the transaction. We do not retain your credit or debit card details.

We use external companies to help us with larger mailings, these companies are UK based and are data protection compliant. If you complete a Gift Aid Declaration, we will share your name and address and the value of your donations with HMRC for the purposes of reclaiming tax paid.

We will never sell or share your data with any other third party unless required by law. 

Employees and Volunteers

The lawful basis for processing employee and volunteer data may include taking steps before entering into a contract, performing a contract, complying with legal obligations, and our legitimate interests in managing our relationship with employees and volunteers, maintaining appropriate records, and protecting our organisation, staff, volunteers and service users.

We use the information collected on our employee and volunteer application forms to identify suitability for work for or volunteering with HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS. If your application is unsuccessful we will dispose of your data within six months. If your application is successful we will retain a copy of your application form and your data will be stored within our employment records to allow us to manage the employment or volunteering relationship we have with you.

If you cease to be employed by HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS, we will retain your personal data for a period of six years.

If you cease to volunteer with HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS, we will retain your personal data for a period of one year.

Legitimate Interests

Where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis for processing personal information, we will only do so where we have identified a genuine and lawful interest, the processing is necessary for that purpose, and we have considered and balanced our interests against your rights, freedoms and reasonable expectations. This may include processing personal information to administer donations and fundraising activity, maintain accurate supporter records, prevent fraud, improve our services and communications, keep appropriate records, and contact recent supporters by post about our work and fundraising activities where they would reasonably expect to hear from us.

Before relying on legitimate interests, we will consider whether the same purpose can reasonably be achieved in a less intrusive way and, where appropriate, we will complete and retain a legitimate interests assessment. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time. If you object, we will stop processing your personal information for that purpose unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds to continue or the processing is required for legal claims. You can also opt out of fundraising and marketing communications at any time using the contact details in this Privacy Notice.

Charitable Purposes Soft Opt-In for Electronic Marketing

In some circumstances, and where the law allows, we may use the charitable purposes soft opt-in to send electronic fundraising or marketing communications, such as emails, text messages or direct messages, without asking for separate consent first. We will only do this where we have obtained your contact details directly from you on or after 5 February 2026, in the course of you expressing an interest in, or offering or providing support for, one or more of our charitable purposes, and where the communication is solely to further our charitable purposes.

We will not rely on the soft opt-in where it would be inappropriate to do so, including where contact details have been obtained from a third party, where the communication is not connected to our own charitable purposes, or where your circumstances mean that receiving fundraising or marketing communications would not be reasonable or respectful. We will give you a clear and simple opportunity to opt out when we first collect your details and in every subsequent electronic marketing message. If you opt out, we will respect your preference and will keep a suppression record to help ensure that we do not contact you again for that purpose.

 Your Updates and Preferences

It is important that we keep your personal information up to date. You can contact us on 01495 717277 or at enquiries@hospiceofthevalleys.com at any time if your circumstances change.

For our legitimate fundraising purposes, we may mail you newsletters and fundraising information by post for a period of three years following your latest donation, unless you choose not to receive these. We will only send fundraising or marketing emails, texts or direct messages where we have your consent or where the charitable purposes soft opt-in applies. If a period of three years passes without a donation, we will review whether it remains appropriate to continue contacting you and will only continue where we have a valid lawful basis and can respect your communication preferences.

You can stop receiving mail at any time by contacting the Fundraising Team on 01495 717277 or at fundraising@hospiceofthevalleys.com

You can stop receiving emails by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in our marketing emails.

You can update your contact preferences by contacting the Fundraising Team on 01495 717277 or at fundraising@hospiceofthevalleys.com

We will not use your details for fundraising or related purposes if you tell us not to, however, we will retain your details on our database to help ensure that we do not contact you again.

Sharing with Third Parties

We will never sell your data to any third party. We will not share your details with other charities for marketing purposes.

We will only share information with other organisations where we have your permission to do so in accordance with this Privacy Notice, where it is necessary for a legitimate reason connected with the services we offer or where it is required by law or regulation.

Sometimes, we may need to share your information with a small number of trusted partners (service providers, agents and affiliated companies) for the purposes outlined above (e.g. a supplier that produces promotional material or delivers goods for us or a supplier that processes payments securely). Where we use third parties, we require them to adhere to appropriate controls to protect personal information.

We use NHS Wales patient record systems, Microsoft Office 365, eTapestry (Blackbaud), Nourish (patient information system), Rio (patient information system), BrightHR (HR system) and Xero, which are cloud services, to store data. This means that internal documents and information generated at HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS may be stored using cloud services. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK or European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, international data transfer agreements, or other lawful transfer mechanisms required by data protection law.

We may, on an exceptional basis, use other tools or services which process data outside the EEA.  In these cases we require suppliers to ensure adequate protection for personal data e.g. Microsoft may provide us with emergency support for Office 365 from outside the EEA in rare circumstances.

Data Security

HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS is committed to keeping your personal information safe and secure and we have security policies and technical measures in place to help protect your information.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

As a user you can help protect the integrity of any data you transmit to HOSPICE OF THE VALLEYS by taking common precautions such as regularly allowing patching for your operating system, ensuring you are running up to date and supported anti-virus software, and only transmitting data where “https” appears at the beginning of the page URL (this refers to the security technology Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and indicates that the data is being transmitted securely).

Your Rights

You have the following rights with regard to the data we store about you:

1. The right to be informed
2. The right of access
3. The right to rectification
4. The right to erase
5. The right to restrict processing
6. The right to data portability
7. The right to object
8. Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling (we do not use automated decision making or profiling).

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us on 01495 717277 or enquiries@hospiceofthevalleys.com for more information. We will respond to data subject rights requests promptly and within the statutory timescales. We may require proof of your identity before dealing with your request. We will usually respond within one month of receiving your request and any information we need to confirm your identity. Where the law allows, this period may be extended for complex requests or paused while we wait for clarification from you. We may refuse to comply with, or charge a reasonable fee for, requests that are manifestly unfounded or excessive, and we will explain our reasons if we do so. If, after speaking to us, you are unhappy with our use of your personal data or our response to your request, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office or seek a judicial remedy.