The Journey of My Angel Privacy Policy
This policy applies to all staff of The Journey of My Angel services
We hold all personal information under strict legal and ethical obligations of confidentiality. We must not use or disclose information that is given to us in confidence in a form that might identify a service-user (or other identifiable individual) without his or her consent. The same principle applies to staff and career records.
There are a number of important exceptions to this rule that are described below, but we must, in most circumstances, involve service-users and others, including careers and colleagues, in decisions about use of their personal information.
Service-users have the right to access their personal files, including paper and electronic files.
1. Introduction
Service-users have a right to expect that our services will hold information about them in confidence. Confidentiality is central to trust between service-users and the service providers. Our handling of confidential personal information must:
• promote, support and protect the privacy, dignity and rights of our service-users
• command the support of service-users, the public, staff, students, volunteers and partner services
• comply with best practice
• conform with the law
• promote the care and welfare of service-users and the effective operation of the service.
Other considerations
• Without assurances about confidentiality, service-users may be reluctant to give information we need in order to provide high-quality services and care.
• Staff must always be able to justify decisions about information sharing or disclosure in accordance with this guidance.
• Failure to comply with this guidance and these instructions may lead to disciplinary proceedings.
Confidentiality Policy
2. Legal and professional basis
• All staff has a statutory obligation to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information. The relevant legislation includes the Data Protection Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998, common law and employment law. It is also central to professional codes of conduct. All staff must be aware that any breach of confidentiality may be a matter for disciplinary action or provide grounds for complaint or private legal action against them by the individual(s) concerned.
• If you have fully informed the person about the range of uses you may make of information they give you, you do not need to seek their specific consent each time you pass on information for a particular purpose.
• You must control access to personal information on a strict need-to-know basis when you are sharing information with other agencies. Where you are dealing with agencies not involved directly in the case, for example, where you are asking an organization to search a database, you should ensure that you give them no more than the minimum information required.
If someone states that they do not want to have their personal information shared, you must respect their wish unless there are exceptional circumstances. You must make sure that you explain fully the consequences of withholding information for care or planning.
3. General principles
• In all cases, you must restrict the amount and type of information to what is necessary in the particular circumstances.
• You must not use information supplied for one purpose for another purpose.
• You must consider whether the information can be shared in anonymous form.
4. Consent by the service-user
• You must explain to the service-user that a refusal to give information or allow it to be shared may make it more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to provide appropriate advice or services.
• At the beginning of any period of contact, including for assessment or service, you should obtain the service-user’s consent to share information within Normal Limits (see below). You must explain the nature and likelihood of the normal limits to the service-user and any other person giving information.
Confidentiality Policy
• You are asking the service-user to give ongoing consent to information sharing, so that you do not have to seek consent on every occasion that information sharing is necessary. You must make sure that the service-user has the opportunity to identify and comment on agencies or individuals that are likely to share information at the beginning of this process.
• The service-user can change the terms of their consent or withdraw it completely at any time. You must discuss the implications of any change or withdrawal with them.
• If a request for information sharing does not come within the usual Normal Limits but is not Exceptional, you must get the service-user’s specific consent to share their information.
• You must also advise the service-user of the Exceptional Circumstances (see S.7 below) in which you may need to share information without consent or, indeed, prior knowledge. You should try to advise the service-user before the information is shared unless that would risk harm to another person or impede the investigation of serious crime.
5. Information from children
• Children and young people of all ages have the same rights to confidentiality as adults.
• Even where the child may not have capacity to consent to or refuse disclosure (see below), they have the right to talk in confidence with any other person.
• If the child does not understand the consequences of confidentiality, you must explain to the child that some information may need to be shared with the people with parental responsibility for the child or with other people, especially if there are exceptional circumstances.
• If you decide not to share the information with the parents, you must record the reason.
• Children who are deemed capable of understanding the implications of medical treatment and, therefore, capable of consenting to it, have the right to be consulted and to be treated by medical practitioners in confidence.
• If the child is deemed to be capable of understanding the consequences of confidentiality, their consent is required for disclosure or access to records. In relation to data protection and access to records, a child of 12 or over is normally assumed to have sufficient understanding. You may only override a child’s consent or refusal where there are issues
Confidentiality Policy
Relating to the child’s capacity (for example, where the child has some degree of learning disability).
• Where you are dealing with a capable child, you must ensure that any decision you make about sharing or disclosing information without their consent, or in spite of a refusal, satisfies the Exceptional Circumstances outlined in S. 7 below.
• If the child is not considered capable of understanding the consequences, then their parents or guardians must consent to disclosure, or request access.
6. Normal limits of information sharing/disclosure
To carry out assessments and to provide effective services, you will usually have to seek information from, and share information with, other agencies or individuals who hold relevant information. This may include:
• staff, including students, directly involved in the services-user's case and care
• senior staff who have supervisory/case management functions or when investigating and handling of complaints
• other colleagues, including service support staff (receptionists, word processor operators, administrators and assistants), who will need or will have access to the information as part of their work
• other agencies and professional staff, for example, health, education and housing, to enable the right provision to be made
• Other agencies or careers undertaking work with the same service-users in partnership or on behalf of local authorities - this would include foster careers and residential staff, for example.
There is a legal obligation to provide information in the following circumstances:
• Requirement by a court/police.
• Requirement by a Children’s Reporter or Hearing.
• Disclosure to Appointees.
8. Procedure for disclosure or sharing of information to other people outside of the normal limits
Before sharing the information outside the normal limits, you should, where necessary, obtain advice from your line manager. If in doubt or you think it appropriate, you may also seek advice from senior management or the Council Solicitor.
You must consider:
• whether to seek the consent of the service-user or the person who has given the information
• how or if the service-user or person who has given the information will be advised that information has been disclosed
• what you will do if consent is refused
• whether advance warning of the disclosure may present risks, for example:
to the service-user or others, or
by hindering police inquiries
• Whether to seek the views of investigating police officers, if the disclosure is related to an investigation of crime.
9. Keeping information safe
• You must make sure that you protect personal information about service-users (and others, including careers and colleagues) against improper disclosure at all times.
• Many improper disclosures are unintentional. You must not discuss identifiable service-users in circumstances that do not come within the normal limits or exceptional circumstances described earlier.
• When discussing service-users, you must ensure that you cannot be overheard by anyone not bound by the same requirements of confidentiality towards that service-user.
Confidentiality Policy
• You must not leave material containing personal data, either on paper or on computer screen, where it can be seen by other service-users, unauthorized staff or other visitors to the office or unit.
• You must keep all portable records containing personal data in recognized filing and storage places. This storage should be locked at times when access is not directly controlled or supervised.
• You should switch off computers with access to client information, or put them into a password-protected mode, when you are not working on them.
• From time to time, you may need to keep material with personal identifiable data in places other than the service-user’s file. You must keep all such material under the same secure conditions as other service-users' files.
For more information about this guidance, please contact the Aprila Adams at http://thejourneyofmyangel.com