Health and Social Care - Privacy Notice

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) functions are primarily set out in the Manx Care Act 2021.

The duties and responsibilities of DHSC are:

• Promotion of comprehensive health and social care services
• Improvement in quality of services
• Promotion of autonomy
• Obtaining of appropriate advice
• Public involvement and consultation
• Promoting education and training (within health and social care)
• Reducing inequalities
• Candour (exercise of our functions in an open and transparent way)

Find out more about all our functions visiting DHSC's homepage. 

We respect an individual’s fundamental right to privacy and will only collect and use personal information when it is necessary and will do so in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation, the Human Rights Act 2001, the common law duty of confidentiality and in keeping with any relevant professional codes of conduct.

We use your personal information when we:

• Investigate complaints
• Undertake Regulatory functions under the Regulation & Inspection Team 
• Consult on future legislation, strategy or policy
• Deal with litigation or legal claims
• And our involvement with COVID-19

You can find out more about the use of your personal information by clicking on the links above. Our retention policy details how long we keep your personal information.

As from the 1 April 2021 the DHSC does not provide direct health or social care services and therefore does not hold or have any access to individual health or social care records.

You have certain rights when we use your personal information, including the right of access to that information.

If you would like access to your personal information, you can make a request:

• By emailing, or writing to our data protection officer
• By completing the online form
• Verbally to the data protection officer (but we recommend this is followed up in writing or by email)

You can also:

• Ask us to rectify inaccurate information.
• Ask us to stop processing information about you
• Ask us to erase personal data we hold about you
• Object to how we process your data.

No right is absolute and we may need to verify your identity.  More information about your rights can be found at: Your individual rights page.   

Cookies are small computer files that are used to track your use of a website. The DHSC website uses cookies; further information can be found on our Cookies page.

This privacy notice does not cover the links to other websites within this site. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on other websites you visit.

You can contact the DHSC’s data protection officer (DPO) if you need help with:

• understanding how we use your personal information,
• exercising your rights or
• making a complaint about the use of your personal information

Our DPO can be contacted as below:

We would like the opportunity to resolve any concerns before you take further action.

However, if we have been unable to do so, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s office.

The Information Commissioner’s website contains general guidance about the data protection legislation, your rights, and how to make complaints to that office. Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s office are:

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last reviewed on 17 Janaury 2022