Privacy Statement

The purpose of this statement is to explain how the NSPA uses your personal information; whether you are a visitor to our website, a member of the NSPA, part of our wider community, or someone with lived experience of suicide engaging in our lived experience network.

This website is run by the National Suicide Prevention Alliance (NSPA). The NSPA is a cross-sector, England-wide network that connects organisations, professionals and individuals with lived experience who are working in suicide prevention. The NSPA is hosted by Samaritans, a charity registered in England and Wales (219432) and in Scotland (SC040604) and incorporated in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (757372). We are committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information that we hold.

Please note that from 26th August 2025, NSPA will be hosted by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH), part of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a registered charity in England and Wales (registered charity number 228636) and in Scotland (register charity number SC038369). You can learn more about how they protect personal data by visiting www.rcpsych.ac.uk/about-us/legal/data-protection.

In line with the principles set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR), we will only use personal information you send us for the purposes for which you provide it, for example for the purposes of membership administration. We will only hold your information for as long as necessary and will not pass on to third parties. If we wish to use your personal data for other purposes, we will offer you the means to consent to those purposes by indicating in a box at the end of the relevant form or contacting you directly to seek your consent.

Being part of the NSPA

NSPA Community

The NSPA community refers to individuals working, or interested in, suicide prevention (including those with lived experience), who want to stay updated about the NSPA’s work and news from the sector.

Individuals sign up to the NSPA Community through the sign-up form on the NSPA website and receive a monthly newsletter plus standalone communications with NSPA updates.
Data collected includes the individual’s name and email address. Data collected is stored securely electronically and is only used for the purpose of community administration and engagement unless consent has been given otherwise.

Data is kept for as long as an individual is an active member of NSPA community and used to communicate with panel members. If an individual wishes to be removed from the NSPA Community, they can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link in email communications.

Organisational members

Organisational members are part of the wider NSPA Community but have access to more targeted and direct engagement opportunities. Organisational members have a nominated ‘lead’ contact within their organisation but may also have a number of additional contacts from their organisation.

Organisations can apply to become members of the NSPA. Membership is accepted if an organisation meets our membership criteria and on the basis they sign up to the NSPA’s membership agreement.

Organisational members receive our monthly newsletter and other communications, are invited to member events and contacted about opportunities to engage with NSPA projects and other activities. Staff of organisational members can also join the NSPA’s Online Forum, where they can discuss and share resources in real-time.

Data collected on Members includes name, email address, and other contact details. This data is stored securely electronically and is only used for the purpose of membership administration and engagement unless consent has been given otherwise, for example consent to share members’ details with another organisation.

Data is kept for as long as an organisation is an active member of the NSPA and used to communicate with individuals employed by the organisation. Organisations can decide to no longer be a member at any time by contacting the NSPA team and requesting for information to be removed from the NSPA membership database and website.

Lived Experience Network

The NSPA includes a Lived Experience Network, which centres and amplifies the voices and expertise of people with lived experience in suicide prevention. Any individual with personal experience of suicide who would like to use their experiences to support and inform suicide prevention can sign up this network.

The NSPA Lived Experience Network works with people with lived experience of suicide in three ways:

Lived Experience Influencers. NSPA Influencers are individuals who are trained and supported to influence suicide prevention policy and practice. Influencers work with the NSPA on an on-going basis and may undertake work with third parties on behalf of the NSPA. For example, supporting organisations that have commissioned the NSPA to facilitate lived experience involvement in service design and delivery, research, government policy, campaigns, and events. The NSPA supports organisations to work together with Lived Experience Influencers in a way that ensures their privacy and is ethical. Influencers are remunerated for this work.

In working with Influencers we collect personal information including, name, contact details, emergency contact information, information such as bank details for the purpose of remuneration. Additional personal sensitive information may also be shared with us to ensure we are able to supporter Influencers in their role. For example, accessibility and support information for the purpose of making reasonable adjustments for training.

Lived experience learning spaces. The NSPA facilitates learning spaces for people with lived experience working in suicide prevention to come together to support one-another and share learning. This includes one-off training courses, reflective learning, communities of practice and Learning & Collaboration spaces. Individuals involved in learning spaces may, but not always, be remunerated for their time.

For any individuals involved in these learning spaces we collect personal information including, name, contact details, information such as bank details for the purpose of remuneration. Additional personal sensitive information may also be shared with us to ensure we are able to adequately support individuals to participate in the learning spaces. For example, accessibility and support information for the purpose of making reasonable adjustments for running group sessions.

Lived experience online panel. Individuals with lived experience of suicide who would like to use their experiences to inform suicide prevention can sign up to the NSPA’s online panel. Through this panel, individuals can share their insights, experiences and views about a range of topics related to suicide. The NSPA engages with panel members through surveys, polls, focus groups, or sharing involvement opportunities on behalf of other organisations.  The database of, and communication with, panel members is managed using a secure mailing database and insights are gathered using secured specialist survey software.

Information collected from individuals when signing up to the lived experience online panel includes name, email address, and type of lived experience of suicide. This data will be kept for as long as the individual is an active member of the Lived Experience Panel and used to communicate with panel members. Only those with access to the platform (NSPA staff team) are able to search for panel members and their contact details on the database.

If an individual wishes to be removed from the lived experience online panel database, they can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link in email communications.

Information collected from individuals when they are engaging in opportunities to share insights through surveys, polls and focus groups includes:

• Identity and contact information such as name, age, email address.
• Demographic information such as location (by region).
• Details of lived experiences, attitudes, and opinions.
• Sensitive personal data such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity (where individuals choose to submit this).

Insights gathered in this way are pseudonymised, meaning that names, contact information, and other identifiable information are removed from responses before being analysed and will only be linked back to an individual in specific circumstances such as removing a panel member’s data or conducting a well-being check. Only those with access to the platform (NSPA staff team) have access to the insights gathered.

Survey results are retained for eighteen months, after which time they are fully anonymised.

The NSPA runs events throughout the year, including events for its members and wider community, such as online discussions and annual membership meetings, and events that are open to the public as well as its community, such as webinars and annual conference.

Information collected for event registration may include but not be limited to, name, contact details, access and dietary requirements for in-person events. For some of the NSPA’s events we may require registration via our website, a third party such as Eventbrite, or in some cases, an NSPA Member’s Website. We only collect information that is necessary for the purpose of the event and personal information is not used for any other NSPA activities or passed to third parties, unless permission has been given otherwise. When registration information is collected through a Members’ website, this will be clearly noted, and the terms and conditions of the Member’s website will apply with regard to any personal information collected.

Representatives of NSPA Member organisations are granted access to the NSPA Online Forum Community on the Website. The purpose of this forum is for member representatives to share knowledge and information about their organisation, and engage in discussion about issues related to suicide and the wider suicide prevention landscape. Online Forum Community Guidelines set out the principles and rules for engaging in the space.

If an individual chooses to leave the NSPA Online Forum, previous posts will not be deleted. Instead, they will be attributed to an anonymous “Deleted member,” and personal information will be removed from visibility. If an individual wishes to end their participation, they should contact the moderator directly at info@nspa.org.uk.

Donations can be made to the NSPA through the donate button on the NSPA website.

We collect donations via an online fundraising platform and they will pass the information of the donor on to us to allow us to record and process the donation. We will contact donors to confirm that we have received the donation. We advise donors to read the fundraising platform’s own privacy policy, as that will explain how they use donor information for their own purposes.

When individuals donate to the NSPA we may collect certain information so that we can process the donation. Information we may collect includes name, email address, postal address, telephone number, bank details (for Direct Debits), taxpayer status and date of birth.

We use donor information for the following purposes:

• To process the donation: We work with payment processors who process your payment on our behalf. Our payment service providers use international recognized encryption standards and security methods to keep your data safe. We are required to keep donation information for 7 years for financial audit purposes.
• To claim Gift Aid: If a donor has chosen to donate to us through Gift Aid, their full name and home address and details of their donation will be shared with HMRC. We rely on consent to claim Gift Aid, and on our legitimate interest in raising funds for processing payments.

Do we use ‘cookies’?

Our website uses cookies to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites. You can find more information about cookies here: http://cookiepedia.co.uk/all-about-cookies

Almost all websites use cookies to ensure that you can interact with our website successfully. We will ask for your consent before deploying analytical, advertising, or third party cookies.

How do we use cookies?

Our cookies help us:

• Make our website work as you’d expect
• Improve the speed/security of the site
• Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
• Continuously improve our website for you
• Make our services more efficient
• Save you having to login every time you visit the site

We do not use cookies to:

• Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
• Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
• Pass data to advertising networks
• Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
• Pay sales commissions

Cookies used on our website

The full list of cookies used on the NSPA website, including a description of what they are used for, is set out below.

Removing cookies

If you want to prevent our cookies being stored on your computer in future, you may do so by referring to your internet browser’s instructions. You can do this by clicking on the “Help” menu. You can find out how to do this on your computer here

If you wish to prevent Google from collecting any information about your presence on our website, they offer a tool here:

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Data protection law means you have the right to exercise certain rights about the processing of your personal data, including:

• Right of access
• Right to be forgotten
• Right to limit processing
• Right to rectification

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, or you require further information about the way your personal data will be used, you can contact us to submit your concerns by emailing: dataprotection@samaritans.org

You also have the right to lodge a complaint to the UK Data Protection Regulator (the “ICO”) about how we have used your personal data. To contact the ICO please use the following details:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/raising-concerns/