Privacy Notice
This section summarises Hato Hone St John’s approach to privacy of Personal Information and Health Information. From time to time we may update this Privacy Notice and/or our Privacy Policy and amend them to reflect changes in legislation, industry codes or in our operations.
This notice doesn’t change any other rights and obligations you or Hato Hone St John have relating to information and privacy.
Your ‘personal information’ is any information that can identify you as an individual. Your ‘health Information’ includes information about your health or disabilities and medical history. In this statement when we say ‘information’, we mean both your personal information and your health information
If you have any queries about anything in this notice or concerns about your privacy, then please contact our Privacy Officer:
The Privacy Officer
St John
Phone: 0800 ST JOHN (0800 785 646)
We deal with your Personal Information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020, the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 and the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code 2020.
How we collect your personal and health information
We may collect personal or health information when you:
The personal or health information collected may include:
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Information captured by CCTV that we have installed to protect buildings and prevent property damage, respond to emergency situations and protect health, safety and wellbeing of all persons at our sites.
How we store your personal or health information
Any personal or health information you choose to give us is stored on paper or in a secure computer system. Health Information is kept for at least ten years and then securely destroyed. Personal Information is kept for as long as is required for the purposes set out in this notice.
All reasonable steps are taken to ensure the personal and health information we collect is protected against loss, unauthorised access and disclosure or any other misuse. We have a number of security measures, including data encryption where possible and role-based access controls. We follow the relevant health standards and guidelines for storing and sending information.
How we use your personal or health information
We may use your personal or health information for one or more of the following purposes:
Accessing or correcting your information
To access any personal or health information held by us, or if you have any concerns about personal or health information that we hold and wish to request its correction, please write or email us at privacyofficer@stjohn.org.nz or the address given above.
When making a request to access or change your information, please include your name, contact address (email or postal), contact phone number and details of the information you want or want to correct. This needs to be as clear and specific as you can make it.
We may ask you for more details to make sure we correctly understand what information you want and before we can provide you with your information or make any changes we need to be satisfied about your identity. To do so, we may need to ask you further questions or for proof of identification.
Requesting information on behalf of someone else
If you are requesting information on behalf of someone else, you will need to provide their authorisation or other documentation to support that you have the right to do so.
Correcting your information
We will work with you to make any necessary corrections.
Where we are unable to change the information or do not agree that it needs to be changed (for example if clinicians relied on that information whilst treating you), we will record your request alongside the Health Information.
Sharing
We follow the rules and guidance of the Privacy Act, the Health Information Privacy Code and the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code about when and why we may share or disclose Personal and Health Information with others including your close family, and other healthcare, support and emergency service providers.
We share with other healthcare, support and emergency service providers to ensure appropriate transfer of care, and to assist with ongoing provision of healthcare services to you.
Information may be shared with government agencies and authorities, law enforcement officials, or law courts on request or otherwise if we believe disclosure is required: by legislation, in the interest of public health and safety, or for the maintenance of the law.
We have a Vulnerable Children, Young Persons and Adults Protection Policy which guides our decision making about sharing information in situations of suspected and actual abuse, neglect and vulnerability.
We may transfer your personal information to other countries for processing, support, storage and other necessary activities and by using our services and products you consent to the transfer of information to countries outside New Zealand which may have different personal data protection rules than in New Zealand. If we do this in this way, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy continues to be protected according to New Zealand privacy law.
Your personal information may be accessible to our contracted service providers and suppliers, which assist us with producing and delivering our products and services, operating our business, and marketing, promotion and communications.
Marketing
We may use you information to provide relevant marketing communication about our products and services
We use Enhanced Conversions with Google to collect and utilize customer data to optimize our communication and engagement with you about our products and services.
We may share your personal information such as email addresses and phone numbers but not your health information with Meta and Google, and other digital publishers, to provide targeted information about our services and products.
Shared data may include transactional information such as the expiry of your ambulance memberships, enrolment information from first aid training courses, first aid kit purchases, medical alarm services, and other Hato Hone St John products and services.
These third parties may use this information to display relevant advertisements and offers that align with your interests and engagement history.
You can control the marketing communications you receive through the following options:
What happens when you call 111
We monitor and record calls we receive through the 111 emergency call centre.
If you or somebody else, on your behalf, makes an emergency 111 call from a mobile device, we collect, store, use and disclose information on the probable location of the caller to help us respond in accordance with the Telecommunications Information Privacy Code 2020.
You can read about the caller location system here and here.
Additional information about patient care records
Storage
When you or someone on your behalf calls 111, the information we receive is stored in a secure computer system.
When Hato Hone StJohn clinical personnel treat you a record of that care is made, either on a paper form or by recording the details on a tablet.
When a paper form is used the form is stored in a secure facility after we have finished with it.
When a tablet is used, your information is stored initially on the tablet in the Ambulance Officer’s hand, then transferred to Hato Hone St John’s data centre and removed from the tablet. It is encrypted while it is on the tablet and when it is being transferred.
This information is kept for at least ten years and then securely destroyed.
Sharing
When we transport you:
If you are transported by ambulance to a healthcare facility (such as a hospital or medical centre) some of the information we collect is made available to the healthcare facility and their staff.
The reasons for this are to ensure appropriate transfer of care at the time you arrive at the healthcare facility, and to assist with ongoing provision of healthcare services to you.
We won’t automatically send our record of your care to your GP when we transport you. The place we take you to might though; if this is of concern then you should discuss it with them.
The process is different depending on whether we handover a paper record or an electronic record:
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Access is permitted only for the purposes of providing healthcare services to you and directly related purposes (including, where applicable, the conduct of quality audits and serious event reviews, and the provision of information to the Coroner, Ministry of Health, ACC, or other regulatory or professional bodies).
When we don’t transport you:
There is a secure process to send a copy of your electronic care record to your GP practice if you are enrolled with a Primary Health Organisation.
We will only use this process if an ambulance officer sees you, but you are not transported by ambulance.
Our staff will ask you about this first. You may choose to ask us not to send the record to your GP.
If you are happy for the record to be sent, we will access a database held by the Ministry of Health to find out which GP practice you are enrolled with, and send a summary of your ambulance encounter to that practice.
We will then keep a record in our system to stop electronic care records being automatically sent. That record will override consent given at the time an ambulance officer sees you and will also stop messages being automatically sent if “yes” is accidentally ticked on our electronic tablets in the field.
If you’ve already told us not to send information to your GP, the ambulance staff may still ask you, as they can’t access that information from their mobile tablets.
We may give you a code to access the electronic record of your ambulance encounter. You will receive a piece of paper with the code and instructions on how to access the electronic record. You may then access the record yourself or share it as you see fit. The access is available for a limited period.
Resolving problems related to your privacy
If you want to report a suspected breach of your privacy or you do not agree with a decision regarding access to your Personal Information or Health Information, please contact us. We have an internal dispute resolution process to address such issues and will promptly acknowledge and investigate complaints.
Any enquires or complaints can be made through the Privacy Officer whose contact details are above.
If you are not satisfied with our final decision you can direct your complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner; phone 0800 80 39 09 or by mail to PO Box 466, Auckland.
Monitoring the use of this website
When you visit this website, we may use automated tools and methods (such as cookies and sessions) to collect information about your visit, including:
This information may be used to analyse how this website is being used.
We may gather more extensive information if we are concerned about abnormal website usage patterns or website security breaches.