Your privacy matters to us
Your privacy is important to IMP Healthcare and our team here at Thiscovery. We keep your information safe and secure.
This service evaluation helps us understand your experiences with NHS healthcare services in our area of Lincolnshire. Your feedback will help us make real improvements to our GP practices and local health services.
Who is collecting your information?
IMP Healthcare is doing this service evaluation. We are a primary care network of nine GP practices who want to improve our services for local people.
Thiscovery collects your survey answers for IMP Healthcare. We follow strict rules to keep your information safe.
Your GP practice may have sent you information about this evaluation. They have not shared your contact details with us unless you are contacted directly as one of our patients.
What information will we collect?
Your feedback about our healthcare services:
- Your experiences using IMP Healthcare GP practices and local NHS services for yourself or someone you support
- What works well and what could be improved
- Your thoughts on digital health services (like online booking and NHS App)
- What healthcare services matter most to you
Basic information about you:
- Your age group and ethnic background
- Whether you work, study, or are retired
- If you have long-term health conditions
- How confident you are using technology
For family members, carers and supporters
- You will also be asked a bit about the person you support, including who they are (e.g. a child or family member) and health concerns.
Important: Information about ethnicity and health conditions gets extra protection under data protection law.
Your contact details (optional):
- Your name and email address
- Only if you want updates about improvements we make
Important: We don't collect your name during the survey. But the mix of information you give us might make it possible to work out who you are.
Right to withdraw: You can stop taking part at any time and choose not to answer any questions.
Why can we use your information?
For your feedback: IMP Healthcare has a legal duty to monitor and improve NHS services. This evaluation helps us do this job better for our patients and local community.
For special category data (health, ethnicity and disability information): We need this to understand how different people experience our services. This helps us plan better services for all communities and reduce health inequalities across our nine GP practices.
For your contact details: Only if you choose to give them to us. You can change your mind at any time.
How will we keep your information safe?
We keep things separate:
- Your contact details are kept separate from your survey answers
- Your survey answers use a number instead of your name
- This means we cannot link your name to your answers
We use secure systems:
- All information is encrypted (scrambled) and stored safely
- Only the evaluation team can see your information
- We follow NHS security rules
- We use certified deletion tools when we remove data
Data analysis and transfer:
- Thiscovery will analyse your feedback and create a report for IMP Healthcare
- After completing the analysis, Thiscovery will securely transfer your feedback data to IMP Healthcare
- Once IMP Healthcare confirms they have received the data safely and all necessary checks have been made, will delete their copy
- Your contact details are transferred separately if you choose to provide them
Important: Sending information over the internet is never 100% safe. We do our best to protect it, but we cannot promise complete security.
How will IMP Healthcare use your feedback?
Making direct improvements to our GP practices:
- Improve appointment booking systems across our nine practices
- Enhance digital services like online consultations and the NHS App
- Better coordination between our practices
- Improve communication between patients and healthcare staff
- Plan new services based on what patients need most
Service planning across our primary care network:
- Understand which services are working well across different practices
- Plan new community health services and pharmacy services
- Improve mental health support and services for people with long-term conditions
- Develop health and wellbeing hubs bringing together different services
- Plan services in community locations outside traditional medical settings
Quality monitoring and improvement:
- Track how well we're doing compared to other primary care networks
- Report to NHS England and local commissioners about our performance
- Meet our obligations under the NHS Constitution
- Address health inequalities in our local area
Your feedback will be combined with everyone else's. No one will be able to tell which answers are yours.
Who will we share your information with?
We will share with:
- IMP Healthcare clinical and management teams across our nine practices
- Local NHS commissioners and integrated care systems
- NHS England for primary care monitoring
- Care Quality Commission (CQC) for practice inspections
We will not share with:
- Individual GP practices
- Companies for marketing
- Insurance companies
- Anyone who might identify you from your feedback
If you give us your contact details, only Thiscovery and IMP Healthcare will contact you about the evaluation and service improvements.
How long will we keep your information?
Your survey answers:
- Thiscovery keeps them for 24 months after the project ends
- IMP Healthcare keeps them for service improvement purposes (usually 5-7 years)
Your contact details:
- Deleted immediately if you ask us to remove them
- Deleted when you haven't been active for 24 months
Research summaries:
- May be kept forever to help plan NHS services (but these won't identify you)
Your choices and rights
You can:
- Stop taking part at any time during the survey
- Skip questions you don't want to answer
- Ask to see what information we have about you
- Ask us to correct wrong information
- Ask us to delete your contact details (we will do this immediately)
- Complain if you're not happy
Important:
- If you don't give us your contact details, we might not be able to remove your survey answers later. This is because we won't know which answers are yours.
- Once we transfer your data to IMP Healthcare, we cannot get it back or delete it from their systems.
- IMP Healthcare will use your data for ongoing service improvement, which may limit their ability to delete individual responses.
Your healthcare will not be affected by taking part or not taking part in this research.
Service improvement and results
If you give us your contact details, IMP Healthcare will tell you:
- What the evaluation found out
- What improvements we are making across our nine practices
- When changes will happen
- How to see the improvements in action
Examples of improvements we might make:
- Better appointment booking systems
- Enhanced digital services and online consultations
- New community health services and pharmacy services
- Improved mental health support
- Health and wellbeing hubs in your local area
- Services in community locations like community centres
- Better coordination between our different practices
Contact us
NHS governance and your rights
