Schedule 3 section 8 further qualifies the health professional role. It
is a person who in the circumstances owes a duty of confidentiality
which is equivalent to that which would arise if that person were a
health professional. "Medical purposes" includes the provision of care
and treatment.
As Nick says these are joint teams nowadays. Imagine the uproar if the
patient was just sent home and they were found dead a couple of weeks
later because they couldn't get out of bed and shop and cook for
themselves and the hospital didn't tell social services because
allegedly the data protection act didn't permit it to do so!
We must not forget that this is standard practice for social services
to be informed - it's part of a patient's/client's care to make sure
that they have adequate support to help with their day to day living
when they are discharged from hospital. Social services will organise
homecare and provide someone to help with domestic cleaning/shopping and
personal care (bathing, dressing, helping them into/ out of bed etc.)
until they are able to do it for themselves. The easiest way to inform
is at the point of collection, ie when the person is admitted to
hospital and the bits of paper about next of kin and consent for the
operation etc are discussed and completed.
>>> Nick Landau <[log in to unmask]> 30/01/2006 15:40:08 >>>
In some Primary Care Trusts they are Health and Social Care.
I recently had a meeting as part of consultations on an Information
Sharing Protocol with clinicians including a Health Visitor.
See the Information Sharing Protocol of Oxleas NHS Mental Health Trust
http://www.oxleas.nhs.uk/foi/Informationsharingpolicy.pdf
It says that this is to be agreed with the following organisations:
Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust
Bexley Care Trust
Bexley Social Services
Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust
Bromley Primary Care Trust
Bromley Social Services
Queen Mary's Hospital NHS Trust
Greenwich Primary Care Trust
Greenwich Social Services.
Another NHS Trust that I recently worked for was "Health and Social
Care" where the PCT and the Borough Social Services were part of the
same management structure.
This is not my specialist area but really the Caldicott Guardian should
be involved here:
The above policy quotes from the Caldicott Report:
"The Caldicott committee identified the following six principles of
good practice for information sharing:
Principle 1: Justify the purpose(s)
Every proposed use or transfer of patient-identifiable information
within or from an organisation should be clearly defined and
scrutinised, with continuing uses regularly reviewed, by an appropriate
guardian.
Principle 2: Don't use patient-identifiable Information unless it is
absolutely necessary
Patient-identifiable information items should not be included unless it
is essential for the specified purpose(s) of that data flow. The need
for patients to be identified should be considered at each stage of
satisfying the purpose(s)
Principle 3: Use the minimum necessary patient-identifiable
information
Where the use of patient-identifiable information is considered to be
essential, the inclusion of each item of information should be
considered and justified so that the minimum amount of identifiable
information is transferred or accessible as necessary
Principle 4: Access to patient-identifiable information should be on a
strict 'need to know' basis
Only those individuals who need access to patient-identifiable
information should have access to it, and they should only have access
to the information items that they need to see
Principle 5: Everyone with access to patient-identifiable information
should be aware of their responsibilities
Action should be taken to ensure that those handling
patient-identifiable information - both clinical and non-clinical staff
- are made fully aware of their responsibilities and obligation to
respect patient confidentiality
Principle 6: Understand and comply with the law
Every use of patient-identifiable information must be lawful. Someone
in each organisation handling patient information should be responsible
for ensuring that the organisation complies with legal requirements."
I would add that
http://www.torbaychildren.org.uk/index/practitioners/cypsp_isa_guidance_and_documents.htm
has a very good website on Information Sharing for multi-agency working.
See in particular
http://www.torbaychildren.org.uk/consent_to_share_personal_information_a_guide_for_practitioners.doc
Nick Landau
Information Governance Consultant
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hitches, John F" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 3:09 PM
Subject: Re: [data-protection] NHS Trust sharing information with
Social Services - explicit consent?
I would question whether Social Services are relevant to "medical
purposes" and they are not "health professionals". I would be
complaining vehemently if my medical data were given to social
services
without my consent.
John F Hitches
Kingston University
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