As part of the recruitment process, if you apply for a job vacancy at Woodlands Surgery, the practice will collect and process personal data relating to applicants, in line with data protection legislation. Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment process; this includes to interviewers involved in the recruitment process, and to the management team.

We treat personal data collected during the recruitment process in accordance with the Data Protection Policy. The practice needs to process data to take steps prior to entering into a contract with you. It also needs to process your data when entering into a contract with you, and to ensure that it complies with its legal obligations, such as being required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts. The practice has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process, and for the record keeping process.

The practice will process health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. Where the practice processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religious beliefs, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

The practice is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences in line with NHS Employers guidelines on criminal records checks, which you can read here.

Information from an application may be processed for purposes permitted under the General Data Protection Regulation. Individuals have, on written request to the Practice Manager, the right of access to personal information held about them.

Where we need to disclose information to a third party, for example to obtain a reference, or to obtain a ‘disclosure’ from the Disclosure and Barring Service, we will not do so without informing the applicant beforehand, unless the disclosure is required by law.

The practice takes the security of your data extremely seriously. Internal policies are in place to ensure that your data is not lost, misused or disclosed, and is only accessed by our employees, in the correct performance of their duties.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the practice will hold your data on file for no longer than six months after the end of the recruitment process. We keep your data for up to six months is in case of any appeals that arise or applicants requesting feedback; we are required to keep the interview markings to show how we completed our selection process. At the end of that period, or if you withdraw your consent beforehand, your data is permanently deleted or destroyed.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file, and retained during your employment at the surgery.