Foundation Trust Membership

As a Foundation Trusts we are a Public Benefit Corporation with a statutory requirement to have a membership base including public and staff members. This enables members of the public and our staff to have a say in how the Trust runs its affairs and to shape its future.

Members of the Public Constituency – we collect and process the information you provide on our membership form. This is limited to your name, address, contact details, confirmation you are aged 16 or over. This information enables us to communicate with you, to confirm that you are eligible to become a member and to ensure we place you in the correct constituency i.e. Luton, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

If you choose to provide it we will also process other information about you like your date of birth, ethnicity and if you consider yourself to have a disability. Collecting this information will help us to meet our legal obligation of ensuring our Public Members are representative of the population we serve.

The information we hold about you as an FT Member or Governor is held completely separately to any information we may hold about you as a patient. This is because the information is collected and held for completely different purposes. So if your name, address or contact details change please inform the FT Membership Department separately (see contact details below).

To ensure we are always able to meet our legal obligations we will keep your information for 12 months after you decide to no longer be a member. If we are aware you have changed address and not informed us of your new address we will maintain your information as an inactive member, but we will not communicate with you during this period.

Our staffs are trained to use your information correctly and protect your privacy. We keep members information confidential and secure in line with Data Protection Laws and guidance.

Members of the Staff Constituency – As detailed in the ‘staff section of The Trust Privacy Notice’. Staffs that are employed under an employment contract with us automatically become members of this Constituency. Registered Volunteers automatically become members of this Constituency once they have been Volunteering for the Trust for a period of 12 months.

We do not collect any information from staff or volunteers specifically for FT Membership purposes and none of your details are kept on our FT Membership database.

Wherever possible we will communicate with staff for FT Membership purposes using internal post and email. However, some staff groups are difficult to reach using these methods, so we may occasionally write to you at the home address the Trust holds for you.

We will collect information in addition to that noted above if you chose to stand for election as a Public or Staff FT Governor e.g. details of your political interests and why you want to become a Governor. Some of the information you provide will be sent to members as part of the election process to enable them to vote for you.

We will use your information to:

Send you a copy of our FT Members Newsletter
Invite you to meetings (you do not have to attend)
Invite you to other events held by the Trust including Medical Lectures
Inform you of Elections and invite you to stand for Election to become a Governor.
Send you Election papers as part of the election process

We use third party companies to manage mailings and for the Governor Election process. These third parties are under strict legal and contractual obligations to only use your information for the purpose instructed by the Trust.

We will not sell your information for any purpose and will not provide third parties with your information for the purpose of marketing or sales.

All FT Members have the right to stop being a member. If you no longer want to be a member please contact the FT Membership Department (see contact details below).

You information, your rights:

EU and UK Data Protection Laws give you the right to:
To be informed why, where and how we use your information.
To ask for a copy of the information we hold about you.
To ask for your information to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
To ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it.
To ask us to restrict the use of your information.

If you no longer want to be an FT Member or if you want to assert your rights noted above or if you want to update your details please contact:

FT Membership Department Bedfordshire Hospitals NHSFT Lewsey Road, Luton LU4 0DZ

Email: ftmembership@ldh.nhs.uk Tel: 01582 718333 Visit: http://bedfordshirehospitals.nhs.uk/get-involved/ft-membership/