The NIHR Research Design Service for the North West Data Protection and Privacy Statement

The NIHR Research Design Service for the North West (NIHR RDS NW) is funded by the National Institute for Health Research to provide research design advice in health and social care research in the North West of England.

The NIHR RDS NW complies fully with the Data Protection Act 1998.

When you contact NIHR RDS NW we may ask you for your contact details, which include your name and a method of contact such as your address. This personally identifiable information is stored securely by the NIHR RDS NW and only members of the NIHR RDS NW staff are able to access this information. No personally identifiable information provided to the NIHR RDS NW will be passed on or otherwise distributed to any third party (any organisation or person outside the NIHR RDS NW) by NIHR RDS NW staff, except where individual consent has been sought and granted.

All information that you provide us with will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Your contact details are collected to facilitate our advice provision.

NIHR RDS NW staff may also ask you for other details which may include, for example, your occupation and the organisation at which you are employed. These details will be used for various analyses of the service and in reports to other organisations. The information presented from the analyses will be anonymous and will not be linked to any personally identifiable information.

If you wish to contact the NIHR RDS NW to ensure that your contact details are correct and up-to-date or to ask for your contact information to be removed from our records, please contact NIHR RDS NW at:

The Division of Health Research, School of Health & Medicine, Bowland Tower East, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YT.

Telephone 01524 593209, Fax 01524 592401, E-mail rds-nw@lancaster.ac.uk

Your contact information will be removed from our records, one year after the end of the NIHR RDS NW contract period (currently one year from 31/03/2015), unless the information relates to a financial transaction when we are obliged to retain it for up to seven years for auditing purposes.

If we decide to change our Data Protection and Privacy Statement, we will post details of any changes on the data protection section of the NIHR RDS NW website (www.rds-nw.nihr.ac.uk). This will help ensure that you are always aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it, how long we will retain it for and under what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties.

Please contact rds-nw@lancaster.ac.uk if you require any further information.

(Version 2 – 09/04/2010).