Accessing your personal information

You have a right to know what information CQC holds about you.

You can find more information about your data protection rights in our privacy statement.

Find out more about the information you can request.

Make a request

To help us to respond to your request, contact us in writing, either to information.access@cqc.org.uk or by post to:

Information Access
Care Quality Commission
Citygate, Floor 6
Gallowgate
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 4PA

Proof of identity

We usually need to see proof of your identity. This is to make sure we do not share your personal information with anyone who should not have it.

In some cases, we may not need proof of your identity (for example if you only want copies of emails that were sent to or from the email address you are using to contact us). It may take us longer to respond to your request if we need to contact you to ask for proof of identity.

When making your request, we recommend that you attach copies (not original documents) of 2 official documents. Between them, the documents must show your:

• name
• date of birth
• current address

Examples of suitable documents:

• your passport
• your driving licence
• a utility bill
• a council tax bill

Or any other official document that shows your name and current address.

Requests by phone

You can make a request by phone to our general enquiries line. We may not be able to complete your request until we have received your proof of identity by post or email.

Request information using our form

You do not have to make a request in writing. Using this form should make it easier for you to provide us with all the relevant information we need. This will help us to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Use our form

When CQC will respond

We will send you an acknowledgement within a few working days to let you know we’ve received your request.

We need to ensure that we don’t give your information to anyone who isn’t allowed to access it. This means that we may have to ask you for proof of identity. If you are making a request on behalf of someone else, we will need to see your authorization to do this (for example, evidence of a court appointed guardianship or a power of attorney).

Once we’ve done this, we must respond to your request within one calendar month. Under data protection laws we may extend this deadline by a further two months if your request is particularly voluminous or complex. If we need to extend the deadline we will write to let you know.

How CQC will respond

We will provide you with copies of your information that you have asked for. If there is any of your information that we cannot give to you, we will explain the reason(s) for this.

We are not allowed to give you any information which identifies another person unless that person has agreed or there is another lawful reason for this to be disclosed. So we may need to consult with third parties to determine if it is fair to disclose the information. If you do not want us to consult with anyone, please let us know.

We may disclose some third-party information without consent if doing so would not cause that person any harm or loss or would not unfairly breach their own privacy.

We may also refuse to supply you with some of your personal information if:

• doing so would interfere with an investigation, prosecution or other action being undertaken by CQC, the police, or another regulator, or would interfere with the prevention or detection of crime
• the information is protected by legal privilege (for example, if information about you is held in correspondence between CQC and lawyers who were giving us legal advice)
• the information is within confidential references (for example, a reference given for you when applying to work for CQC, or a reference we have obtained in relation to an application to be registered to provide care)
• an appropriate medical professional tells us that disclosure of the information might put you or someone else at risk of serious harm

Please note that we will not usually hold copies of your medical records. If you want these, you should contact the service where you received care.

How we conduct searches for your personal data

In most cases we need to carry out time-consuming searches of our records. For example, where we hold information about people who provide, work for, or receive care at a location we regulate, that information will usually be held in records relating to that location. We may need to search and read large numbers of documents to find and extract all personal information.

In our experience, if you have had a lot of contact with CQC and ask for all your personal information this can take a lot of time and effort for us to respond. It may be frustrating for you to have to wait longer for a response for everything if you are particularly interested in specific information. That’s why we ask you to identify specific information you want, where possible.

It will greatly help us to carry out these searches if you provide as much detail as possible, including any dates you may have contacted CQC, names of people you have spoken to, and issues that you have been in contact with us about. We will have to contact you for additional information if the scope of your request is unclear or does not provide enough information for us to conduct a search and this may cause further delay.

Providing a response to you

To help us protect your personal information we will provide the response securely. We will normally use secure email or an encrypted memory stick. Tell us if you would like it in a different format. For example, you may prefer us to respond by post to your home address using the Royal Mail special delivery service or an external courier service.

Cost

We will not usually charge you for making a request. However, we may ask you to pay reasonable costs if you ask for duplicate copies of information we have already provided to you.