Public health national child measurement programme – privacy notice

This notice provides details of how Portsmouth City Council collects and uses information from the National Child Measurement Programme. For more general information about how Portsmouth City Council uses your information for Public Health purposes, please refer to the Public Health Privacy Notice on the Portsmouth City Council website.

Every year in England, children in Reception and Year 6 have their height and weight measured as part of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).

The NCMP provides information to help build an understanding of national and local trends in child weight.  It is important to have a good understanding of how children are growing, so that the best possible advice and support can be provided for them and their families.  Every year, parents/carers/guardians of children in Reception Year and Year 6 will receive a pre-measurement letter explaining what the NCMP is and that their child’s class will take part in this year’s measurement programme – the letter provides information on what the parents/carers/guardians need to do if they do not want their child to take part in the programme and that children will not be made to take part if they do not want to.

The measurements are supervised by trained school nursing staff from Solent NHS Trust at school in a private space away from other pupils.  Children who take part will be measured fully clothed except for their coats and shoes. Routine data such as your child’s name, date of birth, sex, address, postcode and ethnicity will also be collected.

Portsmouth City Council collects the data in accordance the latest legislation: Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013.

The NCMP data is used within the local authority and NHS to help plan the provision of services and advice to support healthy weight and lifestyles in the area. The information is also submitted for national analysis and publication in a way that means individual children cannot be identified.

Portsmouth City Council will process your personal information appropriately and legally in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.  Information is held in a secure database which is only accessible to staff within Portsmouth City Council’s Public Health Intelligence Team. These staff members are trained in data protection / information governance.

We have processes to securely protect these records and we only keep information for as long as is necessary and in accordance with the law.

Portsmouth City Council will retain the personal information for only as long as necessary and in accordance with national guidance / corporate retention schedules. Portsmouth City Council NCMP retention schedule is aligned to the retention schedule for child health records as required by the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care.

Parents are sent their child’s results following measurement.

Individuals can find out if we hold any other personal information by making a ‘subject access request’. If we do hold information about you we will:

• give you a description of it;
• tell you why we are holding it;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request to the City Council for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to:

Data Protection Officer
Portsmouth City Council
Civic Offices,
Portsmouth,
PO1 2AL

As mentioned, the data is held securely by the Public Health Intelligence Team and the information we (Portsmouth City Council) produce is in the form of anonymous statistics published through our website and in reports and papers to the Health and Wellbeing Board and other partners. We never publish information that could be used to directly identify an individual.

As joint data controllers, Solent NHS Trust also stores a record of the height and weight measurements on the child’s health record and may share it with their GP. No individual measurements will be given to school staff or other children, and all information will be treated confidentially.

Portsmouth City Council also sends the data to NHS England where it is also stored securely and used for national analysis.

If you would like further information, please send your requests to the address below:

Public Health Intelligence Team
Public Health Portsmouth
Portsmouth City Council
Floor 2, Core 2
Civic Offices
Guildhall Square
Portsmouth, PO1 2AL

email: publichealth@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

telephone: 023 9268 8217

Further information and independent advice can be found on the Information Commissioners website

Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (if you prefer to use a national rate number).

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 31 October 2023.