The NHS Business Services Authority is responsible for the Healthy Start service through which eligible applicants can get help to pay for specified food items as well as free vitamins.
Why we process your information
We will use the information you give in your Healthy Start application to:
- manage your Healthy Start payments
- help plan and make improvements to NHS services and direct patient care
By law, we must process this information to be able to provide this service.
We will ask you for:
- information to identify you (for example, your name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number)
- your baby’s due date if you are pregnant
- your child's name and date of birth
- details to help facilitate your payment
We may use your information to:
- verify your identity
- analyse the uptake of NHS Healthy Start scheme
- analyse with other user information to understand patterns and trends that will be used to plan and make improvements to NHS Services
confirm your entitlement to free Healthy Start vitamins if you are residing in Northern Ireland
Your information will not be transferred outside the UK or European Economic Area.
Sharing your personal information
To support more effective planning and improvements to NHS services and patient care, we may share our understanding of patterns and trends gained from patient information with:
- NHS Commissioners and service providers
- Department of Health and Social Care
- Department of Health Northern Ireland and Business Services Organisation
- NHS Counter Fraud Authority
- Social Security Scotland (Best Start)
To prevent, detect and investigate fraud and errors, we may share your information with:
- NHS service providers
- Department of Health and Social Care
- DHSC Counter Fraud Authority
- DHSC Anti-Fraud Unit
To send you a payment card we will share your personal information with Allpay. Allpay will load payment to your card and carry out checks to prevent money laundering and misuse of funds.
For further information, you can view Allpay’s privacy statement.
Keeping your personal information
We will keep your personal data on our systems and files for as long as you are eligible for the scheme. We will delete your personal data from our systems and files no later than 7 years after you leave the scheme.
Unsuccessful paper applications to the NHS Healthy Start scheme will be retained, along with copies of any supporting documents, no longer than 24 months from the date we received your paper application to the scheme.
Your rights
The information you provided will be managed as required by Data Protection law.
You have the right to:
- receive a copy of the information the NHSBSA hold about you
- request your information be changed if you believe it was not correct at the time you provided it
- request that your information be deleted if you believe we are keeping it for longer than necessary
- request a review of the automated decision on whether or not you are eligible for the Get help to buy food and milk (Healthy Start) service
Find out more about your rights and how we process information.
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