About us

The Great North Air Ambulance Service is a charity registered in England, Wales and the Isle of Man. The charity is part of a group which includes The Great North Air Ambulance Service (the charity) and The Great North Air Ambulance Service Trading Company (a wholly owned trading subsidiary of the charity that carries out recycling services). The profits made by The Great North Air Ambulance Service Trading Company are donated to the charity on an annual basis to support the delivery of the air ambulance services.

The Great North Air Ambulance takes privacy seriously. The following principles underpin our approach to respecting your privacy:

• We value the trust that you place in us by giving us your personal information. We will always use your personal information in a way that is fair and worthy of that trust.
• We will provide clear information about how we use your personal information.
• We will take all reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse and keep it secure.
• We will comply with all applicable data protection laws and regulations.

This privacy policy explains how we use any personal information we collect about you.

We have a supplementary privacy policy which is specific to our patients, a copy of which can be requested using the contact form on our website:

https://www.greatnorthairambulance.co.uk/our-work/contact/

What information do we collect about you and how do we collect it?

When you contact us in person, by post, telephone or via our website we will ask you for your full name, address, telephone number and email address.

We need this information to allow us to respond to your enquiry; make a record of your pledge to fundraise for us; process your donation; process your merchandise purchase; register you for an event; or to enter you into our lottery or annual raffle.

We also ask for you to voluntarily provide your date of birth. If you choose to provide this it really helps us to understand our supporters and improve your experience, but this is entirely optional.

If you donate using one of our gift-aid envelopes and write your details on the outside of the envelope and make a gift aid declaration then we will record your details to allow us to claim the gift aid from HMRC.

Where you tell us that you are interested in certain activities, for example taking part in challenge events, we will also record this so that we can let you know about fundraising activities that are taking place that match your interests (but we will only be in touch where you have agreed that you are happy for us to contact you).

We collect your information from your letters, emails, or from information you give us over the telephone or in person.

If you sponsor someone who is taking part in an event to raise funds for us, we will retain a copy of the sponsor form for our records; we will also make a record of your details if you have asked to be contacted by us.

If you enter our annual raffle, we will retain your information as part of the records for that draw.

If you sign up for the Northern Berzerkers and request a fundraising pack during sign-up, you will be providing your personal details to SIEntries and through them to the race organisers, who will share this with us to enable us to process your event entry and provide you with a fundraising pack.

Online Giving

We may receive your personal details via online fundraising platforms e.g. JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving, Enthuse or MuchLoved.

If you create a page to raise money for us by doing an event or in memory of a loved one, your details are provided to us to enable us to process the donations and ensure that we can track this and combine it with any offline donations.

If you donate money to a page which has been set up by someone else and choose to allow the platform to pass your details on, then we will receive this information and will use it to process the donation. If you donate and choose not to pass your details to us then we will receive your donation anonymously and will process this without personal information.

We do not buy mailing lists from third parties.

How do we use your information?

 

We use the information that you provide to us to:

• Respond to your enquiry or fulfil your request – such as provision of information, requests to receive our newsletter, requests for fundraising packs
• Process your transactions – such as merchandise purchases, donations, entry into events or event ticket purchases, annual raffle ticket purchases, and lottery subscriptions
• Record any contact we have with you
• Communicate with you in line with your stated contact preferences
• Where you have told us that you are happy to receive contact from us, to provide you with information about the charity that we think may be of interest to you

Lawful Basis

Under data protection law, we use the following lawful basis for our processing.

Delivery of a contract

• If you buy merchandise, play our lottery or raffles or buy a ticket for an event through us then we need to process your personal data to complete this contract with you

You have given your consent

• If you sign up to our newsletter then you are giving consent to receiving updates and newsletters from the charity.
• If you complete a form on our website, or call us then we will request your consent to contact you, giving you the choice of what means of contact this applies to, email or SMS

Legitimate Interests

• Where you have given us your personal data and it is in the interests of the charity to use this, we will carefully weigh this against your rights to privacy and if it is reasonable to do so then we will carry out activities such as sending our raffle tickets.
• We will always consider before doing this any wishes you have expressed and any suppression lists that you may have signed up to (e.g. TPS, MPS and FPS)

Vital Interests

• Our medical teams often make critical decisions around the care of patients and will do what is required in these situations to provide the best care. Our operating procedures are reviewed regularly and our Caldicott Guardian ensures that the rights of the patients are always considered and respected.

We have a legal obligation

• If we are required by law to share information, for example with the police in an investigation, then we will comply with this.

Recording of calls

The charity does not record calls made to the office on the main switchboard number.

Calls made by and to the operational medics via either the emergency 0800 number or the admin line used to communicate with other emergency services and healthcare organisations are recorded and retained to ensure auditability of the care of patients.

Do we share your information?

We do not share your information with any third parties for them to use for their purposes, only to allow them to provide services to us which allow us to provide services to our supporters.

We provide name and address data to Postal Choices ltd t/a Onepost for recipients of tickets for our annual raffle. Onepost produce the printed tickets, letters and envelopes for the postal mailing. This is the only purpose for this and the data is not retained by Onepost once the raffle is completed.

We periodically provide name, address and telephone data to BRG Direct Ltd, who provide a service cross referencing national records to identify deceased individuals, Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and Mailing Preference Service (MPS) subscribers. This allows us to ensure we respect where people have expressed that they do not want to be contacted, and to ensure we do not cause unnecessary intrusion to bereaved families.

Direct Debits – we use a third party (Clear Debit) to process the collection of direct debits both for regular donations and for regular lottery subscriptions. Sign-ups are processed electronically and Clear Debit retain personal data, which is used solely for collecting payments and no other purpose. They then securely transfer those personal details and details of payments as and when they are made to allow us to process these regular donations.

E-newsletter – we use a third-party provider, MailChimp, to deliver our monthly e-newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. For more information, please see MailChimp Privacy Policy

Photography

We (and representatives of the charity) often take photographs at events to be used in literature, publicity or informational material or publication promoting the charities work. This may include brochures, posters, leaflets, display boards, website, social media and any other appropriate materials. If you are an attendee at an event, attending as a spectator or other supporter, you may be captured on camera in some shots. If you do not wish your photograph to be used by us then you can let us know prior to attending a specific event, request this either by speaking to the photographer or GNAAS representative at the time, or by contacting us afterwards.

CCTV
We operate CCTV on all our sites for the purposes of safety and crime prevention. This is recorded with a one month rolling window available for replay if required. If you visit our sites you will potentially be captured both outside and inside buildings.
CCTV on our Progress House site is monitored live by a security guard from the company that provides this service to us, and our Langwathby site is monitored remotely by our own staff in Progress House.

Your data – your rights

If you wish to exercise any of the below rights, please do so in writing to:

• E-mail – please e-mail us at info@greatnorthairambulance.co.uk.
• Post – please write to us at:
• The Great North Air Ambulance Service
  Progress House
  Urlay Nook Road
  Eaglescliffe
  Stockton-on-Tees
  TS16 0QB

Right to access

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information please contact us in writing.

Right to deletion of data

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate. If you make a request for deletion of data, please be aware that there are certain categories of data which we must retain for either legal or organisations policy reasons, for example gift aid declarations must be retained to be provided to HMRC if audited. Please note that you do not need to request deletion of data if what you want is to prevent any marketing, in that case you simply need to contact us with your request.

Right to withdraw consent

You have the right to withdraw consent to processing, but please note that in order to comply with this request, we will need to retain your details on our systems, and if your details are not already on our systems we will need to add them to be able to record your request.

 

Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority

The Information Commissioners Office is responsible for upholding information rights in the UK. If you have a concern about our information rights practices, you can report it to the Information Commissioners Office

On-line via https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

By telephone on 0303 123 1113

In writing to:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

If you are an Isle of Man resident, the contact details are:
On-line via https://www.inforights.im/contact-us/
By telephone: 01624 693260
In writing to:
Information Commissioner
First Floor, Prospect House
Prospect Hill
Douglas, Isle of Man
IM1 1ET

If you would like to raise a complaint with us you can do so using our complaints policy, a copy of which can be found below:

Complaints and Appreciations Policy

 Protecting your information

We use industry standard protection for our network and servers and use encryption where appropriate to ensure that data is protected when its stored and when its moving. Our systems are all up to date with security updates and protected by a fully maintained and up-to-date leading anti-virus product.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by your web browser when you visit a website, to collect information for a variety of reasons, including managing online shopping carts, allowing you to log in and access systems and personalise them to suit your taste, and recording preferences.

We use cookies to enable our website to work, and to allow us to see anonymous statistics which tell us how people are using the website, which pages are popular, where people came to the website from (e.g. a Facebook post or a link in the newsletter). This helps us create a better website which is easier to use and allows people to find the information they are looking for more easily. It also allows us to see which of the things we do are most popular, so we can do them more and spend less time doing things that are not as popular.

For more information on cookies, what they are and how to control them, please visit:

http://www.youronlinechoices.com/

Facebook

We use Facebook Pixel to allow us to see whether a Facebook post or advert is effective in encouraging people to follow the link to our website. This involves putting a small transparent image A.K.A. a “pixel” on the page which then allows Facebook to record when someone follows a link from their system. The data we receive regarding this is purely anonymous statistical data including numbers of clicks and dates. Facebook then allow us to select audience segments based on responses to previous adverts and posts, but at no time are we able to see individuals.

If you wish to manage your Facebook advertising settings, please do so here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/

Google Analytics

When you visit our website (www.greatnorthairambulance.co.uk ) we use Google Analytics to collect information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you:

• By e-mail – quality.assurance@gnaas.co.uk
• Or write to us at:

Complaints and Appreciations
Quality Department
Great North Air Ambulance Service
Progress House
Urlay Nook Road
Eaglescliffe
Stockton-on-Tees
TS16 0QB

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review, and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 10th September 2024.