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Last reviewed: 1 February 2021
From Monday 28 September 2020, there is a legal duty to self-isolate if you test positive for coronavirus or are contacted by NHS Test and Trace and told to self-isolate.
If you are on a low income and cannot work during this self-isolation period, you may be able to access a £500 Test and Trace Support Payment, which will be paid directly into your bank account.
The scheme will run till 31 March 2021.
To be eligible for a Test and Trace Support Payment, you must meet all the following requirements:
In exceptional circumstances, you may be able to apply for a discretionary £500 payment if you satisfy points 1 to 4 of the above eligibility criteria but are not in receipt of a qualifying benefit and would suffer financial hardship due to not being able to work.
To apply for this payment, you should complete an online form and provide the following evidence in support of you claim:
Your application must be made no later than 28 days from the start date of your period of self-isolation.
If you satisfy the above criteria and would like to apply for an NHS Test and Trace Support Payment, please complete the council's online application form.
If you are unable to make an online application, please contact 01744 676767 (option 1).
If you are not receiving a qualifying benefit but would experience severe financial hardship as a result of you being unable to work, we may be able to consider your application under the discretionary rules. You may be asked to provide details of your current financial circumstances. This information can be provided by completing the online income and expenditure form.
On 28th September 2020, the Government passed into law a national Test and Trace Support scheme. From 12th October, a one-off payment of £500 or access to a discretionary fund will be available for eligible individuals. More information about this scheme can be found here.
If you apply, we will need to process your personal data to assess whether you are eligible to receive financial support, and if so, to provide a payment to you. This Privacy Notice sets out what personal data we will use, how we will use it, and why we need to, when an applicant applies for this support.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has commissioned NHS Test and Trace on behalf of the government and is the data controller for the purposes of providing Test and Trace data to St Helens Borough Council.
St Helens Borough Council is the data controller for the purposes of assessing eligibility, administering and making payments under the Test and Trace Support scheme. New package to support self-isolation.
If you have been told by the NHS to self-isolate, either because you have tested positive for COVID-19 or you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive, you may be entitled to some financial support during your self-isolation period.
People who are eligible will receive:
A £500 one-off Test and Trace Support payment or provision from the discretionary fund to remain at home to help stop the spread of the virus.
We collect and process the personal data that you provide to us when completing your application for a self-isolation support payment, which may include:
We will obtain data from the NHS Test and Trace Service to confirm that you have either tested positive for COVID-19 or you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. As this data is related to your health it is referred to as ‘special category data’.
You or your nominated representative will also provide us with additional personal data in relation to your application for a Self-Isolation Payment.
We will carry out checks with the NHS Test and Trace Service and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), for verification purposes, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), for tax and national insurance purposes, and potentially with your employer in validating your application.
Information relating to your application will also be sent to the DHSC to help understand public health implications, allow us to carry out anti-fraud checks and determine how well the scheme is performing.
We will not share this data with other organisations or individuals outside of St Helens Borough Council for any other purpose, other than for the prevention and investigation of fraud.
We will provide information to HMRC in relation to any payments we make because Self-Isolation Payments are subject to tax and National Insurance contributions. If you are self-employed, you will need to declare the payment on your self-assessment tax return.
We must have a legal basis to process your personal data. Our lawful basis in the processing that we’ll undertake in assessing your eligibility for, and in making any self-isolation payment to you, is based on a legal obligation.
Where we use personal information to confirm that someone is eligible for a self-isolation payment, the sections of the law that apply are:
Separately, we have special permission from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to use confidential patient information without people’s consent for the purposes of diagnosing, recognising trends, controlling and preventing, and monitoring and managing communicable diseases and other risks to public health.
This is known as a ‘section 251’ approval and includes, for example, using your test results if you test positive for COVID-19 to start the contact-tracing process.
The part of the law that applies here is section 251 of the National Health Service Act 2006 and Regulation 3 of the associated Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002. You can find more information on this via the NHS Contact Tracing Privacy Notice here.
These are the recipients with which your personal data is shared:
We will only keep your personal data for as long as it is needed for the purposes of the COVID-19 emergency, and for audit and payment purposes. Application forms will be retained for six years.
We use appropriate technical, organisational and administrative security measures to protect any information we hold in our records from loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We have written procedures and policies which are regularly audited, and the audits are reviewed at senior level.
No decision will be made about you solely on the basis of automated decision making (where a decision is taken about you using an electronic system without human involvement) which has a significant impact on you.
For further information on your rights and how to contact the Council's Data Protection Officer please visit: www.sthelens.gov.uk/dataprotection.
We keep our privacy notice under regular review, and we will make new versions available on our privacy notice page on our website. This privacy notice was last updated on 07/10/2020.