Share your views on proposed principles for timely CT scanning in acute abdomen pathways

How do I take part?

• To take part you will be asked to complete an eligibility question and an online consent question. Then, we will show you a set of key principles to support optimising the CT request, and reporting processes in emergency laparotomy. You will be asked to rate these principles and offer feedback. Finally you will be asked some questions about how the principles could be implemented.

Do I have to answer all the questions?

• You do not have to answer all of the questions. However, we hope you will answer as many questions as possible, as this will provide the best possible information about your views and experience.

How much time will it take?

• The survey is expected to take approximately 5-10 minutes. However, you can take as much time filling in the survey as you need.

Can I take a break part way through answering questions?

• No problem. You do not have to answer all the questions in one go.  
• If you would like to take a break, use the 'Next' button to save your answers, and please keep your survey window open so you can continue where you left off.

Is there a deadline for completing the questions?

• The deadline for completing questions is shown on the project webpage. Please do answer all the questions you wish to by this date.

What if I want to stop taking part?

• If you change your mind about taking part in this project you can withdraw at any time without giving a reason. However, it may not be possible to remove data that have already been submitted. To withdraw from the project please email help@thiscovery.org.  

What are the possible benefits of taking part?

• By taking part in this study, you will have an opportunity to share your views on improvement in processes. These insights will be used in the next phase of the project, where we will create assets to support the discussion of the principles at hospitals performing emergency laparotomies.

Are there any disadvantages or risks of taking part?

• We do not believe there are any risks in taking part. You do not have to answer any questions you do not want to and can stop at any time.

What happens to my answers?

• Your answers will be analysed along with the answers from all other participants and will be used to inform the next stage of the project. Findings from the project may also be published in online reports or journals and publicised on social media. Nobody will be able to identify you in any findings that are published: any quotations used in reporting will be anonymised.

How can I learn about the findings of the project?

• The Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community can email you about the project’s findings. You can let us know if you are happy to be contacted in this way by the team at the end of the survey.

‍Data security   

• Your right to privacy is important to Thiscovery and to the project team.    
  Thiscovery takes the security of your information seriously and has policies and processes in place to ensure that your data is safe. 
• Thiscovery’s privacy policy describes the way we collect information, how we use it and how we protect it. 
• For specific information about how information will be used in this project, please see below. 

Who is responsible for collecting my information?  

• We are collecting information about you on behalf of the Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community team, a partnership between the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute) at the University of Cambridge. 
• Under data protection legislation, RCoA and the University of Cambridge are joint Controllers responsible for the processing of your personal information to conduct the project. This means that they are responsible for making sure your personal information is kept secure, confidential and used only in the way you have been told it will be used.    
• They are supported in this by us (Thiscovery), who are known as data processors for this project. 

What information will you collect about me?   

• To take part in this project the project team will need to collect information that could identify you, called “personally identifiable information”. We will need to use the following information from you for this project:   
• Your answers to questions; some of the information that you provide whilst answering questions might be considered as health data or other data that would be classed as Special Category data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).   
• Your name and email address if you would like to be invited to the next stage of the project or receive a summary of the results. 

What is your lawful basis for processing my personal information?   

• We are collecting and storing this personally identifiable information in accordance with UK data protection laws which protect your rights. These state that we must have a lawful basis (specific reason) for collecting your data. The lawful basis for processing your personal information is decided by RCoA and the University of Cambridge as joint Controllers for the data.   
• For this project, the collection of the personal identifiable information is done on the basis of “a legitimate interest” (for the RCoA), “the public interest” (for the University of Cambridge) and/or “a process necessary for research purposes” (for both).  

  How will my personal information be looked after?   

Your data will be looked after in the following way: 

• If you opt to provide your name and email address, Thiscovery will keep this securely. We will only contact you with your permission to provide a summary of results, invite you to the next part of this project or invite you to join the online Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community – depending on your stated preferences.  
• The only circumstances in which the Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community team will have access to your name and email address is if you have given permission for them to contact you directly. In these circumstances, your name and email address are not linked to the information you have provided by answering questions in the project.  
• We separate your name and email address (if provided) from any answers you provide as part of this project and store these securely in separate datasets, one containing contact details and one containing your project responses.   
• This means that in the project dataset, instead of using your name and email to identify your responses, an ID number will be used instead. This is called pseudonymisation.   
• The pseudonymised dataset is what the Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community team will use for analysis. This dataset may contain other personal information as part of the answers you give to questions in the project, such as information about your role.
• Unfortunately, if you opt out of providing your name or email, you will not be able to withdraw from the project if you decide later you no longer wish to be involved, as we will be unable to identify your response. 
• We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that we keep your information secure, accurate and up to date, and that we only keep it as long as is reasonable and necessary.   
• Although we use appropriate security measures once we have received your personal information, the transmission of information when you submit it over the internet is never completely secure. We do our best to protect personal information, but we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted to our website, so any transmission is at the user’s own risk.   
• Information on how Thiscovery will process your personal information, and how to manage your Thiscovery account, is available on our privacy policy.   

Will my personal information ever be shared?   

• We will never share personal information in any way not described in this participation information or in our privacy policy.   
• However, occasionally information provided within a project may be useful to better understand how to conduct online research or to develop new approaches to analysing data.   
• If you agree to take part in this project, we may use some of the information we gather from you to improve the methods we use on Thiscovery. If, to do so, we need to share information with external researchers or analysts, all information will be fully anonymised.   
• By anonymised, we mean that we will remove the ID number used to link your answers to your name, locate and remove any other identifying information (for example, names of NHS Trusts, place names), and any other indirect identifying information (such as specific details about health or experiences).   ‍

How long will my personal information and identifiable responses be held?   

• Thiscovery and the Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Community team will not keep personal data longer than is necessary for the purpose or purposes for which they were collected. For this project, this means that once the project team have finished all analyses and produced all the outputs needed for the project, we will take all reasonable steps to destroy, or erase from our systems, all data that is no longer required.   
  

What if I have a complaint or concern?   

• For questions or concerns about anything to do with the project, please email the Emergency Laparotomy Learning System Core Community project team at THISemlap@rcoa.ac.uk 
• For technical problems or questions about the platform, please contact the Thiscovery team at help@thiscovery.org.   
    

How can I find out more about how my personal data is used?   

• The RCOA’s privacy notice and the University of Cambridge’s Medical School privacy notice describe how they use personal data and explains how you can contact them. The RCOA and the University of Cambridge will protect your information in line with the requirements of the UK Data Protection Act 2018.   
• Thiscovery's privacy notice describes how we use personal data and how you can contact us.