IGPOL91 Call recording policy v2 by Provide Community

Version: V2

Ratified by: Finance and Investment Committee

Date ratified: 01/11/2023

Job Title of author:

Reviewed by Committee or Expert Group

Equality Impact Assessed by:

1. Introduction

The telephony system used by the Provide Group services incorporates a system that records all telephone conversations to and from specified services (Appendix 1) This is a standard practice that allows the recording of telephone calls for quality monitoring, training, compliance and security purposes.

2. Purpose

In order to maintain high standards and protect the patients and staff we need to record telephone calls received into services and retain them. In line with the organisation’s retention schedules (See “Retention of Recordings” below)

We shall ensure that the use of these recordings is fair and that we comply with the requirements of the relevant legislation. This includes:

• The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000;

• The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications Regulations) 2000;

• The Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999;

• The Data Protection Act 2018; andthe UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)

• The Human Rights Act 1998.

• Computer Misuse Act 1990

3. Scope

This Policy covers all situations where calls are being recorded within Provide services. For example, The Care Co-ordination Centre, the Sexual Health Service, Carecall, Essex Wellbeing Service and the Information Technology Team. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

A caller may request that their call is not recorded. Please note that it is not possible for the call recording to be switched off. In this situation, the caller will normally be advised to contact the Provide Service either in writing or by email.

4. Use of recordings

Under normal circumstances a call will not be retrieved or monitored unless:

• It is necessary to investigate a complaint or concern;

• It is part of a management 'spot check' that customer service standards are being met;

• There is a threat to the health and safety of staff or visitors or for the prevention or detection of crime;

• It is necessary to verify the patient’s agreement during certain service requests;

• It is necessary to check compliance with regulatory procedures;

• For fraud prevention and detection purposes

• It will aid standards in call handling through use in training and coaching our staff. However, this will only be permitted if the recording is edited so that the caller remains anonymous and the member of staff who was party to the call agrees to its being used in this way.

Monitoring of the call recordings may only be undertaken by authorised personnel, for example an individual’s direct supervisor or line manager, in order to assess individual performance in relation to agreed call handling standards or in order to improve services.

Any playback of recordings must take place in a private setting. A log must be kept of any recordings played.

Recordings identified as suitable for training purposes must not be played back in public without the prior consent of the employee involved and subject to appropriate data protection consideration of any third party rights involved.

5. Setting up Call Recording

Setting up call recording (or requesting a new phone number with associated functionality) must be logged as a Technology Service desk ticket

Requests for new phone lines and call recording should captured as a minimum:

• Why the phone line is required

• Primary user (or Service where shared)

• Whether voice mail is required

• Whether calls should be recorded – it must be made clear that phone lines likely to be used for calls that may include financial account details (e.g. payment information, credit card details) must not be recorded.

For recording to be switched on for existing phone lines, it must be ascertained as to what the purpose of the recording is. If it is for another purpose than is documented in section 4 then this will need to be reviewed by the Information Governance team which advise on any regulatory/compliance risks with said new purpose/business need The approval should be by an appropriate Senior Business Lead or appropriate operational forum Any phone line likely to be used for calls that may include financial account details (e.g. payment information, credit card details) must not be recorded.

Any requests for a phone line and associated recording must be approved by the responsible service manager.

Line managers requesting call recording must inform the staff member that the phone line is being recorded.

6.

Access to Call Recordings

Only authorised technology team staff, Care Co-ordination Centre (CCC) Manager, EWS Management and the nominated Carecall staff will be granted access to the call recording systems.

For all services other than the CCC, EWS and Carecall the following process will be followed:

• A call is to be raised with the Technology Service Desk detailing the phone number of the caller, date, time and length of the call for which the recording is required from the system. Requests are to be made by an authorised service/ team lead within the service.

• Where it is not possible to locate the recording, additional information will be obtained from the requestor.

• An authorised member of the technology team will search for the recording based on the criteria given and will download the recording and securely email to the authorised requestor.

Requests must be detailed enough to allow for the correct recording to be identified without the need for the technology team to routinely listen to the recording(s)

The CCC Manager, EWS and Carecall Teams will access CCC/EWS/Carecall recordings directly for the purpose of quality monitoring, complaints and investigations. Relevant call recordings for the CCC will be placed into a secure shared folder accessible to team leads only and retained only for the minimum time required (see also Retention of Recordings)

7. Data Protection

Recordings constitute the personal data of both the caller and the operator. Therefore, they will be managed in such a way that the rights of data subjects (callers and operators) can be fulfilled, and all the obligations of the data controller are observed, as per Provide’s Data Protection Policy.

In the case of an incoming call every caller must be notified that the call is recorded and why before the conversation is opened. This should be performed through a prerecorded message within the telephone welcome message before connection is made to a member of staff. Where a call is initiated from the Provide telephone system and where the call is being recorded, the called party must be notified of this.

The caller or called party has the opportunity to consent by continuing with the call or dissent by hanging up.

A caller may request that their call is not recorded. In this situation, the caller will normally be advised to contact the relevant service either in writing or by email.

A caller or a Provide member of staff can make asubject access request for a recording where they are identified as the data subject. These recordings will be located by reference to the date and time of the call and the operator’s identity. Callers asking for the recordings of their calls will have to provide enough information about date, time and operator to enable them to be found.

Any requests for recordings will be handled in line with the organisation’s Subject Access Request Policies and Procedures:

• Subject Access Request (SAR) Policy and Procedure - (IGPOL92)

8. Retention of Recordings

Recordings will be retained on the call recording system for 6 months. Where a call is likely to be needed for ongoing litigation or potential clinical negligence claims – a local secure copy should be retained for a period of 3 years as cited by the NHS Litigation Authority. The telephony systems record (not recorded conversations) should be kept for 1 year.

9. Non compliance

Any unauthorised or inappropriate access to calls on the call recording systems will be investigated as a breach of Confidentiality as set out in the Confidentiality Code of Conduct Policy (IGPOL70) and/ or in line with the terms and conditions of the Information Security Policy (IGPOL53) – in the case of unauthorised access. Non-compliance with the terms of this policy may result in disciplinary action which may ultimately lead to dismissal or criminal prosecution

10. Monitoring and Review

This policy will be reviewed every 3 years. Earlier review may be required in response to exceptional circumstances, organisational change or relevant changes in legislation

11.Appendix

The following services (subject to change) use call recording:

Care Coordination Centre

Technology

Sexual Health Service

CareCall

Community Home Support

EWS (Except dedicated Traveller line)

EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE: Stage 1: ‘Screening’

Name of project/policy/strategy (hereafter referred to as “initiative”):

Call Recording Policy

Provide a brief summary (bullet points) of the aims of the initiative and main activities:

In order to maintain high standards and protect the patients and staff we need to record telephone calls received into services and retain them. In line with the organisation’s retention schedules.

We shall ensure that the use of these recordings is fair and that we comply with the requirements of the relevant legislation.

Project/Policy Manager: IG Manager Date: 11/7/2023

This stage establishes whether a proposed initiative will have an impact from an equality perspective on any particular group of people or community – i.e. on the grounds of race (incl. religion/faith), gender (incl. sexual orientation), age, disability, or whether it is “equality neutral” (i.e. have no effect either positive or negative). In the case of gender, consider whether men and women are affected differently.

Q1. Who will benefit from this initiative? Is there likely to be a positive impact on specific groups/communities (whether or not they are the intended beneficiaries), and if so, how? Or is it clear at this stage that it will be equality “neutral”? i.e. will have no particular effect on any group.

Neutral

Q2. Is there likely to be an adverse impact on one or more minority/under-represented or community groups as a result of this initiative? If so, who may be affected and why? Or is it clear at this stage that it will be equality “neutral”?

Neutral

Q3. Is the impact of the initiative – whether positive or negative - significant enough to warrant a more detailed assessment (Stage 2 – see guidance)? If not, will there be monitoring and review to assess the impact over a period time? Briefly (bullet points) give reasons for your answer and any steps you are taking to address particular issues, including any consultation with staff or external groups/agencies.

Guidelines: Things to consider

Equality impact assessments at Provide take account of relevant equality legislation and include age, (i.e. young and old,); race and ethnicity, gender, disability, religion and faith, and sexual orientation.

The initiative may have a positive, negative or neutral impact, i.e. have no particular effect on the group/community.

Where a negative (i.e. adverse) impact is identified, it may be appropriate to make a more detailed EIA (see Stage 2), or, as important, take early action to redress this – e.g. by abandoning or modifying the initiative. NB: If the initiative contravenes equality legislation, it must be abandoned or modified.

Where an initiative has a positive impact on groups/community relations, the EIA should make this explicit, to enable the outcomes to be monitored over its lifespan.

Where there is a positive impact on particular groups does this mean there could be an adverse impact on others, and if so can this be justified? - e.g. are there other existing or planned initiatives which redress this?

It may not be possible to provide detailed answers to some of these questions at the start of the initiative. The EIA may identify a lack of relevant data, and that data-gathering is a specific action required to inform the initiative as it develops, and also to form part of a continuing evaluation and review process.

It is envisaged that it will be relatively rare for full impact assessments to be carried out at Provide. Usually, where there are particular problems identified in the screening stage, it is envisaged that the approach will be amended at this stage, and/or setting up a monitoring/evaluation system to review a policy’s impact over time.

EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE: Stage 2:

(To be used where the ‘screening phase has identified a substantial problem/concern)

This stage examines the initiative in more detail in order to obtain further information where required about its potential adverse or positive impact from an equality perspective. It will help inform whether any action needs to be taken and may form part of a continuing assessment framework as the initiative develops.

Q1. What data/information is there on the target beneficiary groups/communities? Are any of these groups under- or over-represented? Do they have access to the same resources? What are your sources of data and are there any gaps?

Q2. Is there a potential for this initiative to have a positive impact, such as tackling discrimination, promoting equality of opportunity and good community relations? If yes, how? Which are the main groups it will have an impact on?

Q3. Will the initiative have an adverse impact on any particular group or community/community relations? If yes, in what way? Will the impact be different for different groups – e.g. men and women?

Q4. Has there been consultation/is consultation planned with stakeholders/ beneficiaries/ staff who will be affected by the initiative? Summarise (bullet points) any important issues arising from the consultation.

Q5. Given your answers to the previous questions, how will your plans be revised to reduce/eliminate negative impact or enhance positive impact? Are there specific factors which need to be taken into account?

Q6. How will the initiative continue to be monitored and evaluated, including its impact on particular groups/ improving community relations? Where appropriate, identify any additional data that will be required.

Guidelines: Things to consider

An initiative may have a positive impact on some sectors of the community but leave others excluded or feeling they are excluded. Consideration should be given to how this can be tackled or minimised. It is important to ensure that relevant groups/communities are identified who should be consulted. This may require taking positive action to engage with those groups who are traditionally less likely to respond to consultations, and could form a specific part of the initiative. The consultation process should form a meaningful part of the initiative as it develops, and help inform any future action.

If the EIA shows an adverse impact, is this because it contravenes any equality legislation? If so, the initiative must be modified or abandoned. There may be another way to meet the objective(s) of the initiative.

Further information:

Useful Websites www.equalityhumanrights.com Website for new Equality agency www.employers-forum.co.uk – Employers forum on disability www.disabilitynow.org.uk – online disability related newspaper www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk – Gender issues in more depth www.opportunitynow.org.uk - Employer member organisation (gender) www.efa.org.uk – Employers forum on age www.agepositive.gov.uk – Age issues in more depth

EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE: Stage One: ‘Screening’