Staff thrive mental health app privacy notice

The Council have contracted with Thrive Therapeutic Software Ltd, a mental wellbeing app approved by the NHS, to offer to Council staff.

Thrive app provides a confidential and anonymous space for users to manage their mental health, using NHS approved and Clinically Effective Behaviour Change Techniques like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as well as other activities like meditation, deep muscle relaxation, calm breathing and word games. Thrive offers a unique depth and range of support in one application. The app helps identify risk factors for stress, and then provide a mechanism to eliminate them by changing habits, the application is a powerful prevention tool recognised by the NHS.

We want to offer this app to all our staff as a resource that they can access from their personal or work phones and that will support them through these challenging times. We know that the third lockdown has been harder for staff health and wellbeing than the previous lockdowns and that staff are struggling more in their personal lives now than last year (this was shown in the results from the latest Covid-19 staff survey from January 2021, with 39% of respondent saying that they feel their general health and wellbeing is worse than before).

Thrive app includes a resources section tailored to Waltham Forest which would allow the council to signpost staff to the use of other already existing council resources like the Employee Assistance Programme, functioning as a single front door to access those services.

In order to see how Thrive will use your data you please refer to the Thrive Privacy Notice.

For further information please contact Health and Safety team.

Email: healthandsafety@walthamforest.gov.uk

When you register, Thrive will collect your personal information to create your account and offer the service to you. The details they will collect are a valid email address as a minimum.

Any other information that you may share with Thrive when using the app (e.g. you are asked questions to identify symptoms of Anxiety or Depression and mood levels) is what allows Thrive to provide the services offered by the app.

The only data held by the council will be a monthly report with anonymised data on how staff are using the app. The identity of staff will be kept anonymous on the reports provided to the council.  Thrive will not provide the data by directorate/team if that team has less than 100 users (i.e. to ensure that data is kept anonymous and cannot be tracked back to individuals).

In order for Thrive to provide its services to users, Thrive requires users to provide them with a certain amount of personal data (a valid email address as a minimum).

This is the minimum amount of data due to the nature of the service provided: the email address is what allows staff to log in to the app with their own account; any other information that staff may share with Thrive when using the app is what allows Thrive to provide the services offered by the app: by providing information on their mental health staff will access an effective, safe and personalised service that is able to address their individual needs.

Users are free to withhold information from Thrive that they feel uncomfortable disclosing. Any personal information you disclose will not be shared with the Council.

 The council will be provided with an anonymised monthly report on staff use of the app to help gauge staff wellbeing.  The reports will give an overview, including data on how the app is providing support across the whole organisation to ensure no individual information is provided.  Copies of the reports can be obtained from the Health and Safety Team.

This data will allow the council to adopt its staff wellbeing strategy accordingly (e.g. if staff are experiencing anxiety caused by work morale, we might need to put actions in place to increase morale at work).

The lawful purpose for data collection and use is consent.

As the data contains what amounts to a mental health clinical record, Thrive abide by NHS recommendations as to how long this type of record should be retained. This is 20 years after the last session or 8 years after the person’s death, whatever happens, soonest.

The council will not hold any personal identifiable data from its staff the data will be kept within Thrive app. The only information the council will hold is the cross council anonymous monthly reports which will be used for reporting purposes (to know how the staff is doing, observe trends from month to month and allow us to adapt council’s wellbeing strategy according to staff needs).