Who are we and what do we do?
Pregnancy Sickness Support was founded in 2002 and is the only registered UK charity working to improve care, treatment and support for women and pregnant people suffering from nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) and the severe form of the condition, hyperemesis gravidarum (HG).
Our Registered Charity Number is: 1094788
We are located at:
Arena Business Centre
25 Barnes Wallis Road
Fareham
Hampshire
PO15 5TT
Telephone: 0247 638 2020
office@pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk
1.1 DEFINITIONS
A volunteer is someone who spends time doing any non-compulsory, unpaid activity which is of benefit to others. Volunteers (casual or regular) shall not be considered employees of PSS, neither will they be required to take on responsibilities which should only be given to paid members of staff.
Volunteers will be required to undertake duties in a range of areas to assist in their personal development. Volunteers are not contracted by PSS, and never receive payment for volunteering, be this in kind or monetary. Volunteers will be reimbursed any out-of-pocket expenses incurred through their volunteering activities, such as travel costs.
- STATEMENT OF POLICY
PSS welcomes volunteers in a range of roles within the organisation. We recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make in helping us in our mission and objectives to provide high quality support within the HG community.
PSS seeks to involve volunteers to:
- Offer Peer Support to those currently living with HG
- Offer help within the Social Media sector of PSS
- Offer support to those who have been indirectly affected by HG
- Fundraise
- Deliver workshops/presentations to Health Care Professionals
- Take leaflets/posters into local GP surgeries, hospitals, maternity units etc
- SCOPE OF POLICY
This policy applies to all volunteers and all staff who will be working with volunteers.
PSS’s Board of Trustees supports the use of volunteers and through its managers will ensure:
- That volunteers are properly integrated into the organisational structure enabling them to contribute effectively to its work; will not be used to replace and reduce the work of paid employees.
- That paid employees at all levels will work positively with volunteers in line with our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy and, where appropriate, will seek to involve them in their work where capacity allows, and a meaningful role can be developed; and that can lead to personal development. Employees will seek to help volunteers meet these needs, as well as providing access to relevant training for them to do their work effectively.
- The overall responsibility for volunteers’ rests with the CEO. However, the day-to-day management rests with designated managers and the Volunteer Manager.
- PSS invests in volunteering and its volunteers – and will provide training, support and advice.
- EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION COMMITMENTS
PSS aims to be an inclusive organisation, committed to providing equal opportunities including in the recruitment, training and development of employees/volunteers, and to proactively tackling and eliminating discrimination. We are committed to promoting a culture that actively values difference and recognises that people from different backgrounds and experiences can bring valuable insights to the workplace and enhance the way we work.
Volunteers will receive a copy of PSS’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy within their Handbook and are expected to have and demonstrate an understanding and commitment to this policy.
- EXPECTATIONS, RESPONSIBILITIES AND OPPORTUNITIES
PSS expects its volunteers to be realistic in their commitment. Although we are very flexible with the amount of time we ask from our volunteers, we do expect you to be present whilst committing to Peer Support. Once a commitment is made PSS expects its volunteers to fulfil this unless arranged otherwise. Volunteers will not start their volunteering role until they have been interviewed, two references are received, training has been completed and understood and you have been matched with an experienced Volunteer to Mentor them.
Volunteers will be given full training, covering topics such as the history of PSS, our current team/project delivery and summaries of our key policies, all of which will be tailored to their volunteer role.
Refresher courses will be held where appropriate to coincide with when key policies are updated.
Volunteers will be supervised by the Volunteer Manager, who will hold regular check-ins with each volunteer to discuss their role and progress.
All employees will be fully informed about the rights and responsibilities of volunteers as part of their own induction and through the approved working practices of PSS.
Volunteers are encouraged to represent their views to management on all aspects of our organisation’s work through any written or verbal communication, including volunteer meetings and individual volunteer reviews.
In all areas not related to conditions of paid employment, volunteers will be covered by all the provisions of other PSS policies.
If possible, opportunities will be provided for changing and/or upgrading volunteer responsibilities as desired by the volunteer and appropriate to the organisation through the review system.
This is where we have asked you if we can use your personal data in a certain way and you have clearly agreed to this. If we are relying on consent as our lawful basis to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
⦁ Legal obligations
If we are relying on this as our legal basis to process your personal data, we are complying with a common law or statutory obligation.
⦁ Fulfilling contracts
This is where we need to process your personal data to fulfil a contractual service to you.
⦁ Our legitimate interest
This is where we are processing your personal data in ways that you would reasonably expect. If we are using this basis, we have conducted a legitimate interest assessment to make sure that we have a legitimate interest, that the processing is necessary to achieve that interest and that we have balanced our interests against your interests, rights, and freedoms.
Where we are relying on this basis, we have outlined a summary of our legitimate interest.
If you are in contact with us or use our services, we may ask you if you would like to hear from us about our charitable and fundraising activities. You can unsubscribe from hearing from us at any time. This will not impact the service you receive from us.
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Providing organisers of fundraising events with details of participants | Legitimate interest | To enable organisers of fundraising events to know who is taking part. | 7 years |
| Using images of participants (including children) for PR and promotional purposes for current and future events | Your consent (parental/guardian consent in the case of children) | 5 years | |
| Processing surveys on past events | Your consent | 7 years | |
| Contacting and managing participants at events who are fundraising for PSS to offer support, encouragement, and congratulations. | Fulfilling contracts Our legitimate interest Your consent | To fundraise to conduct research and provide information and support services. | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Processing orders for fundraising materials, goods, and clothing on our website or online shops | Contract | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Processing direct debit donations | Our legitimate interest | By offering different ways to donate to us our donors can choose the most appropriate method for them, which helps to maximise income for us. | 7 years after Direct Debit cancelled. |
| Processing cheque, cash receipts, text donations and bank transfers | Our legitimate interest | By offering different ways to donate to us our donors can choose the most appropriate method for them, which helps to maximise income for us. | 7 years |
| Processing fundraising from online giving sites | Our legitimate interest | By offering different ways to donate to us our donors can choose the most appropriate method for them, which helps to maximise income for us. | 7 years |
| Processing gift aid | Our legitimate interest | If a donor is a UK taxpayer, PSS can increase its income by reclaiming the tax due on the gift | 7 years |
| Saying Thank you Comms | Our legitimate interest | To thank people who have donated to PSS and to make them feel supported | 7 years |
| Processing direct BACS payments to PSS | Our legitimate interest | By offering different ways to donate to us our donors can choose the most appropriate method for them, which helps to maximise income for us. | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Processing payments to suppliers | Fulfilling contract | 7 years | |
| Processing payments to volunteers | Fulfilling contract | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Managing complaints | Your consent | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data | |
| Processing information people have provided to us by any webform eg pregnancy information, donations etc | Your consent | 7 years | ||
| Using essential cookies to run our website and keep it secure | Legitimate interest | To enable our website functions and services to work | 6 months after last interaction | |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Providing personalised health, emotional and informational support to people who contact us | Your consent | 7 years | |
| Providing general information and support to people who contact us | Your consent | 18 months | |
| Processing and storing and publishing consent forms to publish and share personal stories including images and film | Your consent | 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Processing requests from you via our website for emails and fundraising materials Transferring website requests to automated emailing platforms | Your consent Your consent | 7 years 7 years |
| What are we doing | Our lawful basis for processing your personal data | What our legitimate interest is | The maximum time we will hold this data |
| Recruitment of staff (unsuccessful candidates) | Legal obligations | 6 months after assessment | |
| Employed staff members of PSS | Please see Volunteer & Staff Privacy Policy | ||
| Volunteers and Trustees of PSS | Please see Volunteer & Staff Privacy Policy |
Who do we share your personal data with?
At Pregnancy Sickness Support we will only share your data when we have a need to do so. The main reasons will be to provide you with the service you require e.g. processing payments from you via BACS or because we are using the services of a specialist company where we do not have the necessary expertise, such as Stripe for payments and BeaconCRM our database software.
We will never sell your information to a third party for marketing purposes. We ensure that all organisations that are processing your personal data on our behalf have the highest standards of security and will not use your personal data for anything other than our agreed purposes that we have set out in this policy.
We may share anonymised data relating to specific health conditions or lifestyle issues with non-profit health research organisations with the aim of improving public health, and it may be used in research publications. This will only be done in an anonymised manner or with your express consent if you participate in a Patient Participation Investigation (PPI) research.
Automated decision-making
Pregnancy Sickness Support does not carry out profiling or take significant decisions about individuals by wholly automated means. The only exception to this is where Pregnancy Sickness Support collates email addresses of previous years’ participants in sporting events who have fundraised for Pregnancy Sickness Support. This data is used to target potential participants to fundraise for Pregnancy Sickness Support at future sporting events.
Storing your information outside the EEA
In very limited circumstances, Pregnancy Sickness Support may transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Pregnancy Sickness Support will ensure that the country to which your personal data is transferred ensures an adequate level of protection for your rights and freedoms.
Your rights
You have the following rights:
- The right to be informed of how your personal data is used – we do this in the Privacy Policy and providing links to this Privacy Policy when we are collecting personal data from you.
- The right to access your personal data (Subject Access Request – SAR)– you can submit a request to find out about the information we hold about you.
- The right to object to the processing of your personal data – if we are processing your personal data under the legitimate interest lawful basis.
- The right to have your personal data rectified – you can request that we correct your personal data if it is incorrect or incomplete.
- The right of portability of your personal data – you can request that some of your personal data is transferred to you or to another organisation.
- The right to be forgotten – you can request that we delete your personal data.
- The right to have your personal data restricted – you can request that we stop processing your personal data and only store it.
- The right to object to direct marketing – you can object to direct marketing at any point and we will not send you any further marketing communications unless you change your mind.
- The right to withdraw consent – if we are relying on your consent as our lawful basis for processing your personal data, you can withdraw your consent for processing at any time.
- The right to complain about our processing of your personal data – please contact office@pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk so that we can help you. If you wish you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or via their website.
If you would like to exercise your right to a SAR you can do this verbally or in writing (including social media). A request is valid if it is clear that you are asking for your own personal data. You do not need to use a specific form of words, refer to legislation or direct the request to a specific contact.
However, If you have any questions or queries about this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to exercise any of your rights and direct your request to a particular person, please contact the Data Protection Officer at the address and contact details below:
In writing: Data Protection Officer, Arena Business Centre, 25 Barnes Wallis Road, Fareham, Hampshire, PO15 5TT
Tel: 0247 638 2020
Email: office@pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk
Data Protection Officer:
Charlotte Howden
Chief Executive Officer
charlotte@pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk
We will comply with your SAR without undue delay and at the latest within one month of receiving the request.
This time may be extended to a further two months if the request is complex or if we have received a number of requests from you, eg other types of requests relating to individuals’ rights.
If we process a large amount of information about you, we may ask you to specify the information or processing activities their request relates to, if it is not clear. The time limit for responding to your request is paused until we receive clarification, although you should supply any of the supplementary information you can do within one month.
We need to be satisfied that you are the individual requesting access and may ask you for ID if this is not clear from your request. We shall ask for ID promptly and pause the response period until this has been received.
We will reply to you in the format that you requested the SAR, unless this was via social media. Then we shall ask your preference on how to receive the information requested. Pregnancy Sickness Support will endeavour to use a form of communication that is accessible.
When can Pregnancy Sickness Support refuse to comply with a request?
There are certain exemptions that apply which may mean that we can refuse to provide all or some of the requested information, depending on the circumstances.
We can refuse to comply with a SAR if it is manifestly unfounded or manifestly excessive.
If we refuse to comply with a request we will:
Let you know the reasons why;
Inform you of your right to make a complaint to the ICO or another supervisory authority; and your option to seek to enforce this right through the courts.
What happens if your request involves information about other individuals?
Where possible, we will consider whether it is possible to comply with the request without disclosing information that identifies another individual. If this is not possible, we do not have to comply with the request except where the other individual consents to the disclosure or it is reasonable to comply with the request without that individual’s consent.
We will respond to you whether we decide or not to grant your request when a third parties information is involved.
For more information please click here to find out more about SARs on the Information Commissioners Office website.
We may at our discretion amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Please check here to ensure you understand the version of our Privacy Policy which will apply at that time.
This Privacy Policy was last updated in November 2023