How we use your personal information for the Substance Misuse Service
The Council provides services for local communities and the people who live in them. Undertaking this work means that we must collect and use information about the people we provide services to and keep a record of those services. Because we collect and use personal information about individuals we must make sure that they know what we intend to do with their information and who it may be shared with.
We have summarised in this privacy notice some of the key ways in which we use your personal information for the following purposes;
- Substance Misuse Residential Rehabilitation
- Service User Engagement Activities
- Harm Reduction Co-ordination.
This information should be read in conjunction with the Council’s corporate privacy notice.
1. Who we are, what we do.
Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC is the lead Authority for the planning and commissioning of substance misuse services in the Cwm Taf area. These services are funded by a Welsh Government grant.
As well as commissioning services from our partners in Cwm Taf Health Board, other departments in RCT and Merthyr Councils, and voluntary sector agencies, we;
- Provide funding for Residential Rehabilitation placements for individuals who have been assessed as needing this service.
- Co-ordinate Service User Engagement activities, including a time credit scheme whereby individuals earn time credits for each hour they contribute to the community, which can be spent on activities such as local attractions, leisure activities.
- Co-ordinate harm reduction across Cwm Taf including review of fatal and non fatal incidents.
2. What and whose personal information we hold?
We hold information about individuals who:
- Are referred to Residential Rehab
- Access Residential Rehab
- Engage in our Services
We also receive information relating to individuals who have had an accidental drug poisoning incident.
The types of information we hold and process will typically include:
Residential Rehabilitation
- Contact Information including name, address
- Date of birth
- Placement Information i.e. length of time in rehabilitation
- Progress made during and after rehabilitation
Service User Engagement
- Contact Information including name, address
- Progress made as a result of engaging with our Service
Harm Reduction co-ordination
- Name
- Address
- Date of birth
- Ethnic origin
- Date and location of incident.
3. Where does the service get my information from?
There are a number of ways in which we obtain personal information, as detailed below:
- Directly from an individual e.g. on a registration form for those who access our Service User Participation programme.
- By members of the public e.g. complaint or concern
- Referral Information received by other departments in RCTCBC, Merthyr Tydfil CBC, Cwm Taf UHB, voluntary sector partners, e.g. TEDS, Barod, who provide services on our behalf.
- For drug poisoning incidents, we could receive information from a number of third parties, including:
- South Wales Police,
- Cwm Taf UHB,
- Voluntary sector partners e.g. TEDS, Barod, Dyfodol
- Information generated by the service, e.g. when monitoring a Service User’s progress during their time at rehabilitation, or as a result of taking part in other activities that the Service offers.
4. What we will do with your personal information?
Information relating to:
- Residential Rehabilitation is used for monitoring of placements, i.e. to monitor whether the individual has made progress as a result of attending rehabilitation.
- Service user Participation details are used to monitor activity and time credits. We also use this information to help us with the planning and evaluation of services to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the individuals accessing our services.
- Harm Reduction:
- Information relating to fatal incidents is used to review and identify causes of incidents to identify lessons learnt and inform future service provision.
- Information relating to non fatal incidents is used to engage with individuals to provide harm reduction advice and guidance.
5. What is the legal basis for the use of this information?
Data Protection law says that we are allowed to use and share personal information only where we have a proper and lawful reason for doing so.
As a Public Authority, we have a legal obligation under Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to have a strategy for combating substance misuse. In order to do so, we will sometimes need to share your information with trusted partners, who work with us to achieve the same goal, i.e. to combat substance misuse in RCT.
6. Does the service share my personal information with any other organisation?
Non identifiable information relating to residential rehab placements is shared with Welsh Government.
For individuals engaging with Service user participation we share their information with The Spice time Credit Service in order to calculate and award the time credits to the individual.
Information relating to Accidental drug poisoning incidents is shared with other partner organisations such as:
- South Wales Police,
- Cwm Taf UHB,
- Voluntary sector partners e.g. TEDS, Barod, Dyfodol
Details are recorded on a central database for monitoring purposes.
7. How long will my information be kept?
We will only keep your personal information for as long as we need to, e.g. for monitoring the grant fund.
8. Your information, your rights
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives you important rights, including the right to access the personal information the services hold about you.
View further details on your information rights and how to exercise them.
9. Contact us
If you have any concerns or would like to know more about how the service using your personal information please contact us in one of the following ways:
By email : contact@substancemisuerct.co.uk
By telephone : 01443 425612
In writing : Cwm Taf APB – Lead Officer (Substance Misuse), RCTCBC, Tŷ Elái, Dinas Isaf East, Williamstown, Tonypandy, CF40 1NY