Counties Manukau District Health Board (“CMDHB”) is committed to protecting your privacy.
This transparency statement explains how we collect, store, use and share information gathered about members of the public for the purposes of providing health care and for detecting or investigating potential threats to the physical security of people or assets.
We take care to exercise our information gathering powers appropriately and meet our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020; Health Information Privacy Code 2020; State Sector Code of Conduct, and Information Gathering Model Standards at all times.
Any such information gathering must be approved according to our internal authorisation process. That process, and other related activities are regularly reviewed to ensure compliance with the law, our internal policies, and our risk management requirements.
This statement applies to information gathered by us, our contractors, or any other third parties engaged by us.
This section explains how we collect, use and share information to fulfil our obligations of providing health care and ensuring that we maintain the quality of the services we deliver.
Collecting your personal information
As a District Health Board, CMDHB collects personal information primarily to fulfil its functions to provide and procure publicly funded health services for the South Auckland Community. Included in these functions is work to improve, promote and protect the health of the population and communities including planning for and funding health services, carrying out teaching and research, monitoring quality and improving the services we deliver.
CMDHB’s information collection practises are governed by a wide range of relevant policies. These policies reflect the current law (for instance, CMDHB’s establishment legislation) and recognised standards (Office of Privacy Commissioner, professional practise standards and New Information Gathering Model Standards as defined by the State Services Commission). In addition, the information is collected by employees who are bound by the State Services Commissioner’s Code of Conduct, clauses included within their employment contract which defines the expectations of privacy and, in the case of many clinical professionals, in accordance with the standards imposed upon them by their professional bodies. With the overlay of CMDHB’s values and expectations, the expectations on employees are very high.
Use and disclosure of your Personal Information
In accordance with New Zealand privacy law, the information we hold is used only for the purpose for which it is collected, as defined in the prior paragraph or as otherwise advised.
CMDHB is mindful that information collected and used by it is sacrosanct and under the Privacy Act 2020 and Health Information Privacy Code 2020 can only be disclosed in very limited circumstances.
In some circumstances, your information may be shared with family, support people or other agencies if you give us your permission or disclosure is authorised by law or for providing treatment to you. Where the sharing or disclosure of personal information to third parties, including other Government agencies (e.g. WINZ), is required by other legislation, this will supersede the Privacy Act and CMDHB will be obliged to share this information. This disclosure of information may occur without your prior notice or consent.
Where the disclosure of information is not required by law but is at odds with the purpose for which it was collected, we will inform you of this disclosure and/or request your consent to the disclosure.
Personal information will also be used to evaluate the quality of services we provide to ensure continuous improvement, analysis for the purpose of evaluating population health outcomes and for the design of services to ensure that these meet the needs of the population we serve.
Storing your Personal Information
CMDHB secures your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure.
The security of our information is managed in accordance our Privacy Policy and Safe IT (Information Technology) Practices Policy, and in compliance with the Privacy Act 2020; Health Information Privacy Code 2020, the Official Information Act 1982 and the Public Records Act 2005.
We use various third party providers to securely store, process our data and support business operations. We store some personal information we collect in the cloud locally and overseas. This means that the personal information we hold may be transferred to, or accessed from, countries other than New Zealand. We comply with the requirements, as required by the Ministry of Health, before approving the use of cloud providers.
This section explains how we collect, use and share information when we are carrying out the functions such as considering and investigating compliance breaches, complaints and initiating our own investigations or inquiries.
The security of people and the protection of our assets are managed in accordance with our Health and Safety, Security and CCTV policies and in accordance with government procurement standards.
We collect personal information (video footage) via our CCTV cameras only for the purpose of keeping people and assets safe. This footage is collected, stored, used and disclosed in accordance with our Privacy and CCTV policies.
Where we have concerns regarding threats to the safety of people or property we will engage an appropriate authority (such as the NZ Police) and CCTV footage may be released to support the purpose of collection.
Our external CCTV cameras are linked to the NZ Police Command Centre for direct access should this be required for the purpose of crime prevention or supporting CMDHB during an emergency. The process for accessing CMDHB’s CCTV cameras by the NZ Police is governed by a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties.
CMDHB may engage third parties to support the security function and/ or deliver threat risk assessments to enable CMDHB to meet its objective of keeping people and assets safe. Release of CCTV footage to these third parties may be required to deliver this outcome.
Note that we collect some user information automatically from the CM Health website. For more information regarding the terms of use, information collection and storage via our online platforms please refer to www.countiesmanukau.health.nz/terms-of-use.
You have the right to know what personal information we hold about you. As such, you have the right to request that we provide this to you. It will be made available as soon as practicably possible (this may not be immediate).
To submit a request you can write to:
The Release of Information Clerk
Clinical Records Department
Counties Manukau Health
Private Bag 93311
Otahuhu
Auckland 1604
OR
Email Information.Requests@middlemore.co.nz
OR
If you are an inpatient, you can request this access via your charge nurse. Some information may be legally withheld in certain circumstances, e.g. where your health or the privacy or safety of another person is at risk. If this happens you have the right to be told why the information is being withheld.
You also have the right to request correction or alteration of your information. These requests may not always be approved, however in circumstances where they are not you will be informed of the reason why and a record of your request will be kept.
CMDHB will occasionally update this Statement to reflect company and customer feedback. CMDHB encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how CMDHB is protecting your information.
Should we identify a need to gather information in scope of the model standards in future, we will ensure compliance with Information Gathering Model Standards, and update this transparency statement accordingly.
CM Health’s Transparency Statement excludes the collection, use and storage of personal information related to staff. Please refer to CM Health’s internal policies and procedures should you be a staff member and require further information.
Counties Manukau Health welcomes your comments regarding this Statement. If you believe that CMDHB has not adhered to this Statement or you would like further information, please contact CMDHB via our online feedback, compliments and complaints form available on our website.
https://www.countiesmanukau.health.nz/contact-us/feedback-form/.
If you have any queries or concerns about how your personal information has been managed, please contact us to see if we can resolve the problem. You can:
Email us at hnzprivacy@health.govt.nz; or
Write to us at Privacy Officer – Te Whatu Ora, PO Box 793, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
If you’re not satisfied with our response to your concerns, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. For more information see the Office of the Privacy Commissioner website here: https://www.privacy.org.nz/your-rights/making-a-complaint/.
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