Finance Tool Privacy Notice

Content last updated: 14 May 2024. Changes made to address change of legal body from CRNCC to RDNCC under new contract from 1 April 2024.  Minor change to "Destruction of Data" section - first bullet point. Change of presentation on site to show all content on one page but also leave distinct site links to separate pages.

The Department of Health and Social Care  ("DHSC”) is the Data Controller for the Finance Tool "[FT]" under the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK GDPR, and the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("Data Protection Laws"). 

The University of Leeds (“The Host Organisation”) is the Data Processor for the "[FT]". The University of Leeds provides the National Institute for Health and Care Research (“NIHR”) Research Delivery Network Coordinating Centre (“RDNCC”) on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care and the RDNCC is responsible for the processing of your personal data. 

Audacia Consulting Limited, which is employed by the University of Leeds to host the CRN Finance Tool, is a Data Sub-processor.

About the NIHR Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre 

The NIHR Research Delivery Network Coordinating Centre (RDNCC) is a service provided by the University of Leeds, with contracted maintenance by PA Consulting Services Limited.

The RDNCC manages the NIHR Research Delivery Network ("RDN") on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.  The RDN makes it possible for patients and health professionals across England to participate in clinical research studies within the NHS.  The RDN provides the infrastructure that allows high-quality clinical research funded by charities, research funders and life-sciences industry to be undertaken throughout the NHS.  The RDN works with patients and the public to make sure their needs are placed at the heart of all research, and provides opportunities for patients to gain earlier access to new and better treatments through research participation. The RDN provides practical help in identifying and recruiting patients for clinical research studies, so that researchers can be confident of completing the study on time and as planned.

The RDN supports around 5,000 clinical research studies each year.  

The information we collect

The RDNCC collects your personal data on behalf of, and as directed by, DHSC.

The RDNCC collects information directly and indirectly. When you use the RDN Finance Tool, we use technology to collect information indirectly - such as your internet address. This is commonplace across all internet services to enable the investigation of issues such as malicious use. This information is then kept in our system access logs.

We collect information directly from you in a number of ways. One way is by using cookies. Cookies are small files of information that may save and retrieve information about your visit to our site, such as how you entered our site, how you navigated through the site and what information was of interest to you. This information is collected to:

• help us understand how the service is used in order to develop and improve the website and associated services

• troubleshoot any issues that you may experience

• avoid you having to log into the service more often than necessary.

Your data will be stored on the RDN Finance Tool website.

The personal data we collect may vary depending on the nature of your interaction with the RDN. However, we always protect your personal data within the terms of this Privacy Notice.

How and why we use your personal data

Use of personal data:

• Data Security - we use usernames and passwords to ensure you only access appropriate data.

How we protect your data

What is the ‘data’ journey?

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and maintain strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. However, given that transmitting information over the internet cannot be completely secure, we cannot guarantee the security of your data in transit.

The CRN Finance Tool is hosted on behalf of the RDNCC by Audacia Consulting Limited on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform from a UK-based data centre which provides for disaster recovery processes across its servers. None of the data contained within the RDN Finance Tool will go outside the UK or the EEA.

We will not sell your personal data. We will not disclose your personal data to third parties outside of the RDNCC, unless we have your explicit permission, or are required by law to do so.

We will hold the data for as long as we are providing you services and for as long as you agree to this. We will retain your data for as long as we are contractually obligated to do so by our Contract with DHSC or until such time as the RDN Finance Tool is decommissioned:

• We only store data that is necessary for a specific purpose

• We will not store your data for longer than is necessary

• Your data will be securely deleted when no longer needed for the purpose(s).

Destruction of Data

• This services falls within the scope of NIHR RDNCC's  ISO27001:2022 and Cyber Essentials certifications

• Your data will not be deleted from the CRN Finance Tool in line with financial auditing requirements.

• No paper records are kept of personal confidential data

Who do we share your personal data with

Your data is shared within your RRDN core Finance team and with the RDNCC Finance team for the purpose of user account management.

Audacia Consulting Limited (i.e. the company hosting the system) is both contractually obliged and has signed up to a Data Processing Agreement, which prevents them from sharing your data with other non-authorised third parties and provides for the secure disposal of this data.

We will never share personal information with other third parties without your consent.

Your rights over your personal data

The Data Protection Officer for the RDNCC is:

• Name of Data Protection Officer: Lee Cramp

• Address: Department of Health and Social Care,  1st Floor North, 39 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, SW1H 0EU

• Email - data_protection@dhsc.gov.uk 

As a data subject, you have the following rights under the Data Protection Laws: 

• the right of access to personal data relating to you 

• the right to correct any mistakes in your information

• the right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing

• rights in relation to automated decision making  

• the right to restrict or prevent your personal data being processed

• the right to have your personal data ported to another data controller (e.g. if you decide to contract with a different supplier).

• the right to erasure

• the right to withdraw consent

These rights are explained in more detail on the Individual Rights section of the Guide to the General Data Protection Regulations on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

If you wish to exercise any of your data subject rights, please contact the NIHR Service Desk in the first instance - either:  

• Write to The NIHR Service Desk, Back Lane, Melbourn, Royston, SG8 6DP

• or Email: gdpr_requests@nihr.ac.uk 

We will respond in a timely manner to any rights that you wish to exercise, and for Subject Access Requests (SARs) this has to be  within a month of receiving your request unless the request is particularly complex.

Contacting the Regulator

It is important that you ensure you have read this privacy notice - and if you do not think we have processed your data in accordance with this privacy notice - you should let us know as soon as possible.

Similarly, you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. Information about how to do this is available at www.ico.org.uk.