Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust serves more than 11 million people, offering specialist inpatient and community services that support mental health, learning disabilities, addictions, brain injuries and physical health. They are one of only three trusts in the UK that offer highly secure mental health facilities. At the heart of what they do is commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient.
Their clinical services are provided from 84 sites across the North West. These teams are supported by a corporate team based at offices in Kings Business Park, Prescot, Merseyside.
With over 7600 staff serving a population of almost 11 million people, in 2017/18, they provided care, treatment and support to more than 33,000 people with 568,951 outpatient attendances, community contacts or domiciliary visits.
With so many staff and patients, it is imperative that data protection comes a very close second – in terms of priority – to top class care.
In 2013, the Trust enlisted the assistance of B&M Secure Shredding to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act and, as of this year, GDPR, through safe and secure, confidential information shredding and recycling across their outlets.
Handling sensitive documents from healthcare sites requires thorough and secure destruction methods. B&M Secure Shredding therefore audited the sites and subsequently provided a console service to 30 Mersey Care sites across the region. All consoles are lockable and are emptied on a regular basis by B&M’s SVS-checked drivers.
All materials from these sites are, once shredded to BS:EN 15713 standards, 100% recycled. This reduces the carbon impact of the Trust on the environment. Additionally, B&M Secure Shredding provide Mersey Care with a certificate of destruction, as an audit trail that all sensitive information has been processed according with legislative and best practice guidance.
Additionally, B&M Secure Shredding provide quarterly reports to Mersey Care informing them of current recycling rates, which for shredding are 100% recycling. Plus, as an existing B&M Waste Services customer for all waste segregation, management and recycling Mersey Care NHS saved 491,029 kg of carbon equivalent to 398 trees through recycling and diverting waste from landfill with B&M Waste. Using the Secure Shredding service has further increased Mersey Care’s diversion from landfill rates, as all shredded materials are 100% recycled.