Phone support services confidentiality statement

The Marie Curie Support Line team are not:

We are therefore unable to provide advice on these matters.

Whilst our Support Line nurses are clinically trained, they are unable to provide medical advice and do not have access to your clinical records. We recommend you check with your local medical professional if you have any questions or concerns.

The Marie Curie Information and Support Line and Peer Support services are free services which offer a space to talk about how you're feeling, and also to find out practical and clinical information about living with a terminal illness.

The service is confidential, whether you contact us by phone or in writing (including web chat, social media and email or letter), though there are some specific occasions where we may need to break that confidentiality (these are listed below).

There are times where we'll need to break this confidentiality agreement; the following are such occasions, though this is not an exhaustive list:

If appropriate and possible, we will inform you that we're going to do this.

Apart from an occasion where we need to break confidentiality for a purpose such as those listed above, we will not share your data with anyone outside of Marie Curie and we will not use your information to send you any marketing information. The information from your enquiry is restricted to the Information and Support Line and Peer Support service staff.

There may be some occasions where we have to share your specific information with another team (such as our Nursing team) but we will let you know if we need to do this. This would usually be when you ask for help or information from another part of our organisation.

Marie Curie collects, stores and processes information about patients, carers and members of the public who access and use the Information and Support Line and Peer Support services.

Marie Curie is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data to meet its data protection obligations. Personal information will be held in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The personal data we collect, store and process in relation to Information and Support Line and Peer Support services enables us to deliver services, signpost individuals to relevant support, understand how effective our service is, who we are reaching and how we can support more people. It is provided to us by individuals at the point of referral or first contact with the Support Line.

The types of personal data we collect include the following:

When you visit our website, we use analytics tools and cookies to collect information; please refer to our privacy notice on the main Marie Curie website for further details.

Marie Curie is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information and we aim to maintain high standards for our record keeping and security. We maintain a database which only Information and Support Line and Peer Support service staff can access. We use your personal data for a number of purposes including the following:

If you supply us with your name and contact details to create a profile, the database will contain the following:

This information is used to offer you tailored and consistent ongoing support relative to your needs and situation. It may also include demographic information, if you have opted to provide this to us. This is collected to help us to understand who we are reaching, and how we can support more people.

All of our calls are recorded to monitor the quality of our service and support the training of our staff and volunteers. They may also be used to support the investigation of a safeguarding matter or complaint, where they will be listened to by the appropriate manager within the team. We are also required to comply with legal obligations should we be requested to provide this information under a court order.

Your telephone number will be stored in our call recording system and linked to the recording of your call. Our call recording system is separate to our main database where your information is stored.

The Information and Support Line process data to provide these services as per Article 6 and Article 9 of the UK GDPR.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, where there is a safeguarding concern, or where this is required or permitted by law.

If you do not provide your consent for the Information and Support Line and/or Peer Support service staff to process your personal data, for a specific service that is offered under the lawful basis of your consent, then we might not be able to provide that service to you in full.

We will use your personal information for the purposes for which it is collected. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We may need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. This may include:

Any disclosures of personal data are made on case-by-case basis, using the minimum personal data necessary for the specific purpose and circumstances and with the appropriate security controls in place. Information is only shared with those agencies and bodies who have a "need to know" or where you have consented to the disclosure of your personal data to such persons.

Your data is kept in accordance with the statutory retention periods.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please inform the Information Support Line on 0800 090 2309 or support@mariecurie.org.uk if any of your contact details change.

What rights do I have over my personal data? You can:

If you have questions about this privacy notice, or if you would like to exercise any of your privacy rights, please contact the Information and Support Line email support@mariecurie.org.uk.

If you are dissatisfied with our response, or if you have any further queries regarding how your personal data is processed, you should contact Marie Curie's Data Protection Officer at DPO@mariecurie.org.uk.

If you are still unhappy with the outcome of your enquiry, you have the right to object to data processing in certain circumstances, which you can do by contacting the Information Commissioner's Office.

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545700

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.