Privacy notice

EMPOWER is a national, structured diabetes education programme designed to help people with Type 2 diabetes understand what diabetes is, the effect it has on their body and how to make small, achievable changes to the food they eat and their everyday life.

Spirit Health employs a specialist team of dedicated educators and experienced administrators to:

  • Manage the referral process, with a dedicated 24/7 support line for patients
  • Deliver the EMPOWER course face-to-face, over video or online 
  • Collect and review key clinical and quality of life metrics pre and post course

The EMPOWER programmes are run and managed by Spirit Health.

What information is being collected for the EMPOWER courses by Spirit Health?

  • General contact information: name, address, telephone number, gender, date of birth,
  • Main language spoken
  • Clinical information: NHS number, GP practice, basic medical history including height, weight, medication and smoking
  • Ethnicity
  • General health questions e.g. mobility, pain levels, dementia and self-care
  • Information regarding the past three GP consultations
  • Blood test results
  • Equality and diversity monitoring (this is optional)

How is it collected?

  • Directly from the patient’s healthcare professional e.g. GP or practice nurse
  • Directly from the patient 

Why is it being collected?

This information is being collected in order for Spirit Health to fulfil their contract with the specified Clinical Commissioning Group. Without collecting this information, it would not be possible to provide the educational programme in a targeted way. In addition to this, consent is also used/obtained – this would be for attendance at the course, for us to contact their GP to confirm attendance and share goal setting and to conduct reviews at 6 and 12 months.

Information is collected for:

The information is collected for us to deliver the educational programme and review the patient at 6 and 12 months to assess the impact upon the patient.

How will it be used?

  • To invite the patient onto a course
  • To deliver the educational programme
  • Follow progress of the individual for 12 months from the date of attendance
  • To advise the GP of attendance and progress

Who will it be shared with?

  • The patient’s GP practice
  • The patient
  • Course facilitator and administrators

Out of hours

Patients may also call and leave a message with our out of hours service run by a third-party provider. The information would be limited to name and contacted details and it would be related to booking onto one of our courses.

Where will the data be stored?

All information collected is stored electronically in a secure network complying with industry standards for security.

Paper documents are kept in a locked cupboard and destroyed one year after the patient leaves the service.

Automated decisions

No automated decision making is used with the data collected.

Your rights as a data subject

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

  • Access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
  • Require the organisation to change incorrect or incomplete data;
  • Require the organisation to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing; and
  • Object to the processing of your data where Spirit is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact [email protected]

The Data Protection Officer (DPO)

Spirit Health have appointed a DPO. This is our Head of Governance – Lisa Wakeford. The role of the DPO is to assist data ‘Controllers’ and ‘Processors’ to comply with data protection law and avoid the risks that organisations face when processing personal data.

The Data Controller

Spirit Health is responsible for keeping your information safe. Our registered business address is:

Spirit Health, Spirit House, Saffron Way, Leicester, LE2 6UP

Telephone: 0800 8815423                https://www.spirit-health.com

If you believe that the organisation has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

Information Commissioner

The Data Protection Act 2018 requires organisations to lodge a notification with the Information Commissioner to describe the purposes for which they process personal information. These details are publicly available in the Register of Data Controllers. Our Registration number is: Z1816219 

Further information can be obtained from:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane

Wilmslow, SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113                 www.ico.org.uk