Blank Islington CCG Guidance Template

BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION

GUIDANCE

1 TITLE: MANAGING EMAIL

2 POLICY AREA: INFORMATION GOVERNANCE

ACCOUNTABLE DIRECTOR FOR DIRECTOR OR QUALITY AND 3 POLICY AREA: INTEGRATED GOVERNANCE

4 GUIDANCE DRAFTED BY: INTEGRATED GOVERNANCE MANAGER

5 SIGNED OFF BY EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT TEAM

CCG INFORMATION GOVERNANCE AND SECURITY POLICY

6 RELATED DOCUMENTS: CCG RETENTION SCHEDULE

NHS MAIL POLICIES ON EMAIL ACCESS AND MANAGEMENT

DOCUMENT CONTROL

Date Version Action Amendments 27/7/15 Amendment to section 5 Addition of sub-section 11

of 6 MANAGING EMAIL BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION 1. Introduction

Islington CCG provides its staff with email as a tool to facilitate their work. When staff use email for CCG business, or use CCG provided email (including nhs.net) in any context, they are representing the CCG and the CCG therefore expects them to adhere to standards of professional conduct.

In addition email is often misused as an information storage system and people often are unsure about how they should file, store, manage and ultimately clear the emails they receive.

This document is designed to act as guidance for staff on both these topics. By following it, the aim is for staff to reduce the stress of managing large amounts of email, to improve the quality of the emails you send and, we hope, improve the quality of the emails you receive.

At the outset for all email communication you should be able to say:

 why you are emailing;  what you are emailing;  who you are emailing.

2. Who can you talk to?

If, after reading this guidance you are still not sure or have any questions you can speak to any of the following people:

General enquiries can go to:

 Your line manager.  The information governance lead.  The IT team.

Depending on the purpose or nature of your email, you can also seek specific advice from:

 The Caldicott Guardian.  The Senior Information Risk Officer.  The lead for patient and public engagement.  Human Resources

3. Roles and Responsibilities

As a member of staff you are accountable for your use of CCG email. You must therefore abide by the CCG’s policies on conduct, and on information governance.

One of the first things you must decide is which emails and attachments form corporate records and which do not. Everyone is expected to be able to identify and manage information that relates to their work as part of their day to day duties.

2 BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION Transient emails with little or no retention value should be deleted as soon as possible. Emails that form part of corporate records: ones that set out a decision that has been made or an agreement reached, for example, should be saved in the relevant part of the CCG’s folder system so they can be accessed in future.

All staff should be clear about, when communicating any information, who is responsible for saving and maintaining corporate records relating to the price of work concerned.

4. What else should you read?

All staff should be familiar with the CCG’s policies and guidance on information governance and security, including the CCG’s retention schedule.

5. Key Principles

1. Email is a communication tool, not a records management tool. Email is not where corporate records should be stored. 2. Double delete: delete things from your deleted items folder as well (see guidance in the appendices on how to automate this process). 3. Staff should aim for a completely clear email inbox by the end of each day. 4. For those very rare personal emails, staff should set up a Personal Email sub folder. At no time should this be used to store photographs, videos or music as storing these on a corporate email system is likely to be a breach of copyright legislation. 5. Messages should be brief and to the point. There should be only one topic per email exchange, and emails should typically be five lines or less 6. BCC should be used for large distribution lists such as all-staff emails or the GP bulletin. BCC should not be used for ad-hoc email conversations, where CC is more appropriate. 7. Only copy people in to your email that need to see it; and avoid using ‘reply to all’ when responding. When copying in extra people tell them why you are doing that, and what you want them to do in response. 8. Your work email isn’t private. Email is more like sending a postcard by second-class mail rather than a sealed envelope by recorded delivery. 9. Email, including emails in your sent items, personal, or deleted items folders, are subject to freedom of information requests and you as the sender are responsible for disclosing an email unless you are sure the last recipient of the last email in an email conversation has completely deleted it. 10. Emails containing personal data or other sensitive data should be sent via nhs.net or another secure email system. 11. The email account provided for your employment and its content remain the property of the CCG and email accounts may be accessed or withdrawn without permission or notice for operational reasons.

of 6 MANAGING EMAIL BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION 6. Freedom of Information

Emails have the same legal status as any other written document such as a letter, memo or a fax. Electronic messages can be legally binding; contracts can be set up via email and the CCG may be held liable for defamatory statements in email.

If you choose to keep an email, you are responsible for finding it so it can be released. For most people it will be inappropriate to delegate searching through your stored emails to find relevant messages. Remember that FOI covers your archives, sent items, personal folder, and deleted items; and it is illegal to delete things once they have been requested under FOI.

 The content does not matter – only an exemption under the Act can be used to justify non-disclosure and in most cases this would mean only redacting information and disclosing the rest of the email.  The status of the email doesn’t matter – regardless of who sent it; whether it is marked high importance, personal or draft; or whether it is in your ‘deleted items folder’ or saved on your H drive.  The age of the email does not matter. Any email or document that is kept, even if it is outside of published retention schedules, is disclosable.

Emails are recoverable until the last recipient of an email discussion deletes the last email in that discussion so that they can no longer retrieve it.

7. Email security

It is very important that your email is kept secure. This applies whether you are using Islington CCG email, or NHS.net email. There are three main ways to do this:

1. If you are emailing any sensitive information e.g. financial information, or personal confidential data, the ensure you use a secure email system. It is not enough to send an email using nhs.net: you must ensure the recipient’s email is secure as well. You can use the table below to work out which email-to-email systems are secure:

isli [lb ng i an to nel se y nc cs . cu ot cg. u. . . gsi . re he nh nh nh nh .go go e r s.u s.u s.n s.u v.u v.u ma em k k et k k k il] ail islingtonccg.nhs.uk Y Y N N N N N N nelcsu.nhs.uk Y Y N N N N N N .nhs.net N N Y N Y N Y N .nhs.uk N N N N N N N N .gsi.gov.uk N N Y N Y N Y N .gov.uk N N N N N N N N [lbi secure email] N N Y N Y N Y N any other email N N N N N N N N

4 BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION 2. Never let anyone (apart from your PA or IT) access your email account or send emails on your behalf. You are accountable for the use of the email accounts you are provided with for work purposes.

3. The NHS is regularly targeted by fraudsters. Be wary of email scams and phishing emails – particularly those with attachments. The most sophisticated email scams appear to come from trusted emails or email addresses you recognise so it is important to be watchful. If in doubt, delete it and report it to IT.

8. Email etiquette

As with all forms of communication there is a proper way of handling email to get the best out of it and to help maintain good working relationships with colleagues.

Best practice is to set aside time in each day when you will deal with emails. Those emails that will not immediately get your attention, or be delegated for action to someone else, should be diarised for action with an email acknowledging receipt and giving the sender a rough timescale for a response. This will help avoid email chasing.

When replying to emails you should try to keep responses brief. Long or complex discussions are often better handled in person or over the phone. Emails that are longer than a few lines might be better set out in an attachment like a word document or a presentation.

If you do use an attachment then it is good practice to minimise the size of it so you use less of recipients’ email storage space. There are two ways of doing this.

The first is to ‘zip’ attachments into a compressed folder. This is particularly useful if you are sending more than one attachment e.g. papers for a meeting.

Alternatively, if the person you are emailing is on the same computer network as you, then you can send a link to where the attachment is saved rather than the document itself. For this to work, you will need to ensure the email recipient(s) are able to access the folders where the attachment is saved.

As with any other medium politeness and professionalism are required. It is especially important that you avoid e-mailing anything that might be – or that might be perceived as being – libellous, defamatory, or offensive. This also applies to personal email.

To help recipients manage emails you should be clear in the subject line what the action is you expect. Examples you could use include:

 For action;  For response;  For information;  Urgent (use for things that require immediate attention);  Important (use for things that impact long term goals and deliverables).

So your subject line might be “For action: EMT paper on email guidance”.

of 6 MANAGING EMAIL BEFORE USING THIS GUIDANCE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE MOST UP TO DATE VERSION

You can also help recipients and yourself manage emails and avoid chasing by drafting emails in a way that have no response as the default option:

“I’m going to submit the draft email guidance to EMT for sign off on 15th September. If you have any changes will you let me know by the 12th? If I don’t hear from you I’ll send the paper as is.”

Another way of helping senders and recipients to manage emails is to stick to topic. If you need to change the subject or talk about something else send a new, separate email.

One of the problem with email is there is an imbalance between the sender and the receiver. In a phone call or with letters both parties spend roughly the same amount of time communicating. By email the sender often spends a tiny amount of time sending their email than the recipient spends collating a response. You can help avoid this situation by:

 Not asking people for things in an email because it’s easier than looking on the system for them.  Sending unnecessary or duplicate emails.  CCing in people who do not need to see the email.

Don’t feel bad about prioritising your response to an email. People can wait; and just because the medium facilitates instant communication that doesn’t make it appropriate or good manners.

DON’T institute a rule where you ignore emails until someone has chased you three times or similar. It’s unprofessional and people get wise to it quite quickly.

If you are CCd into an email trail and it is not immediately obvious to you why it is important for you to have the email or whether you need to reply, then it is not inappropriate to delete it. It is the sender’s responsibility to help you understand.

9. Further Tips for Good Email Management

The appendix gives illustrated advice on how to do some of the following:

 Never give out your password.  Do not store emails on your C:\ drive.  Where possible use hyperlinks rather than attaching documents to an email. Do not delegate the management of your inbox or archive to someone else.  Hyperlinks will help with version control, and reduce the risk of out of date documents and drafts being kept. They will also help reduce email inboxes.  Ensure your outlook calendar is fully visible to all colleagues (you can still keep private things private).  Set your email to automatically spell-check on sending.  Avoid archiving emails and instead regularly do a mailbox clean-up.  Use tools like flags, categories and reminders to keep on top of your emails.  You can change the subject line of received emails to help manage them.