1.9 Information Sharing and Confidentiality

SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER

The following is a summary of the Government Information Sharing: Guidance for practitioners and managers, published in October 2008, the full text of which can be accessed at the Department for Education website.

RELEVANT GUIDANCE

See also “Information Sharing: Further Guidance on Legal Issues” and “Information Sharing: Case Examples” (which can be found at the same website address).

For doctors, useful guidance is contained in the General Medical Council Guidance for Doctors on 0 to 18 year olds.

AMENDMENTS

This chapter was updated in August 2010 to take account of the above guidance - in particular Section 2 sets out the Seven Golden Rules of Information Sharing included in the 2008 government guidance.

Introduction
Seven Golden Rules
Why Information Sharing is Important
How Practitioners should be Supported by their Employers
Confidentiality and the Public Interest

1. Introduction

1.1	Sharing information is vital for early intervention to ensure that children with additional needs receive the services they require. It is also essential to protect children from suffering harm from abuse or neglect and to prevent them from offending.
1.2	Practitioners must always consider the safety and welfare of a child when making decisions on whether to share information about the child. Where there is concern that the child may be suffering or likely to suffer Significant Harm, the child’s safety and welfare must be the overriding consideration.
1.3	Information sharing and making a referral can be different actions. The parties involved will need to clarify the purpose of sharing information and what the respective agencies will do in response to receiving the information.

2. Seven Golden Rules

(Taken from Information Sharing: Guidance for practitioners and managers)

Remember that the Data Protection Act is not a barrier to sharing information but provides a framework to ensure that personal information about living persons is shared appropriately
Be open and honest with the person (and/or their family where appropriate) from the outset about why, what, how and with whom information will, or could be shared, and seek their agreement, unless it is unsafe or inappropriate to do so.
Seek advice if you are in any doubt, without disclosing the identity of the person where possible.
Share with consent where appropriate and, where possible, respect the wishes of those who do not consent to share confidential information. You may still share information without consent if, in your judgement, that lack of consent can be overridden in the public interest. You will need to base your judgment on the facts of the case. Consider safety and well-being: Base your information sharing decisions on considerations of the safety and wellbeing of the person and others who may be affected by their actions
Necessary, proportionate, relevant, accurate, timely and secure: Ensure that the information you share is necessary for the purpose for which you are sharing it, is shared only with those people who need to have it, is accurate and up-to-date, is shared in a timely fashion, and is shared securely.
Keep a record of your decision and the reasons for it - whether it is to share information or not. If you decide to share, then record what you have shared, with whom and for what purpose.

3. Why Information Sharing is Important

3.1

Sharing information is essential to enable early intervention to help children and families who need additional services to achieve positive outcomes, thus reducing inequalities between disadvantaged children and others.

3.2

Information sharing is also vital to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. A key factor in many Serious Case Reviews has been a failure to record information, to share it, to understand the significance of the information shared, and to take appropriate action in relation to known or suspected abuse or neglect.

3.3

Practitioners can sometimes feel constrained from sharing information by their uncertainty about when they can do so lawfully. It is important therefore that practitioners:

Are supported by their employers in working through these issues;
Understand what information is and is not confidential, and the need in some circumstances to make a judgement about whether confidential information can be shared, in the public interest, without consent;
Understand and apply good practice in sharing information at an early stage as part of preventative work;
Are clear that information can normally be shared where they judge that a child is at risk of Significant Harm or that an adult is at risk of serious harm

4. How Practitioners should be Supported by their Employers

4.1

It is important that each agency involved in providing services to children and families has a systematic approach to explain to children and families when they first access the service how and why information may be shared, which will build the confidence of all involved. In Walsall's Child Concern Model, Appendix 3, Sharing Information and Appendix 4, Young Person’s Guide to Sharing Information contain explanatory notes for parents and children and forms for their written consent to be recorded.

4.2

Agencies should make arrangements to ensure that members of their staff in contact with children and families are familiar with Walsall's Child Concern Model, which provides guidance on information sharing in relation to children in need in Walsall and, in particular, that:

All staff in contact with children understand what to do and the most effective ways of sharing information if they believe that a child and family may require particular services in order to achieve positive outcomes;
All staff in contact with children understand what to do and when to share information if they believe that a child may be a Child in Need, including those children suffering or at risk of suffering harm;
Appropriate training is made available to new staff as part of their induction and ongoing training;
Guidance and training specifically covers the sharing of information between professions, organisations and agencies, as well as within them, and arrangements for training take into account the value of multi-agency as well as single agency training;

5. Confidentiality and the Public Interest

5.1	In deciding whether there is a need to share information you need to consider your legal obligations including: Whether the information is confidential; and If it is confidential, whether there is a public interest sufficient to justify sharing the information
5.2	Confidence is only breached where the sharing of confidential information is not authorised by the person who provided it or to whom it relates. If the information was provided on the understanding that it would be shared with a limited range of people or for limited purposes, then sharing in accordance with that understanding will not be a breach of confidence. Similarly, there will not be a breach of confidence where there is explicit consent to the sharing.
5.3	Even where sharing of confidential information is not authorised, it may lawfully be shared if this can be justified in the public interest. Seeking consent should be the first option, if appropriate. Where consent cannot be obtained to the sharing of the information or is refused, or where seeking it is likely to undermine the prevention, detection or prosecution of a crime, the question of whether there is a sufficient public interest must be judged by the practitioner on the facts of each case. Therefore, where a practitioner has a concern about a child, he or she should not regard refusal of consent as necessarily precluding the sharing of confidential information.
5.4	A public interest can arise in a wide range of circumstances, for example, to protect children or other people from harm, to promote the welfare of children or to prevent crime and disorder. There are also public interests, which in some circumstances may weigh against sharing, including the public interest in maintaining public confidence in the confidentiality of certain services. The key factor in deciding whether or not to share confidential information is proportionality, i.e. whether the proposed sharing is a response in proportion to the need to protect the public interest in question. In making the decision, the practitioner must weigh up what might happen if the information is shared against what might happen if it is not, and make a decision based on a reasonable judgement.
5.5	It is not possible to give guidance to cover every circumstance in which sharing of confidential information without consent will be justified. It is possible however to identify some circumstances in which sharing confidential information without consent will normally be justified in the public interest. These are: When there is evidence that the child is suffering or is at risk of suffering Significant Harm; or Where there is reasonable cause to believe that a child may be suffering or at risk of Significant Harm; or To prevent Significant Harm arising to children or serious harm to adults, including through the prevention, detection and prosecution of serious crime, i.e. any crime which causes or is likely to cause Significant Harm to a child or serious harm to an adult.

End