An Ultimate Guide to Confidentiality in Health and Social Care

 Many policies are concerned with a person’s confidentiality in health and social care. As a Health and social care practitioner, one needs to be aware of all these rules and procedures to secure confidentiality.  

What are the Confidentiality Rules in Health and Social Care? 

According to A guide to confidentiality in health and social care published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), here are five main rules to obey:

 1. Confidential information provided by any clients should be treated with respect and with confidentiality. 

Treating confidential or private information with trust and respect should be a priority as it ensures safety and effective care. People believe that the information they are giving to their care provider is safe with them and can benefit from a full treatment or service.

Gossiping or prying on a client’s personal life or sharing information publicly or with someone who has nothing to do with the client is considered unethical. If anyone is found violating the rules will be punished accordingly by the laws of the organisation.

A key part of confidentiality is that all the documents and files that the caregiving team members provide are complete and correct. While creating reports of the clients, the medical information should be processed privately. 

2. Caregiving team members should only discuss information when it ensures the safety and proper care of the client. 

Confidential information should be shared with another member when used to ensure the client’s wellbeing. One should only share information with the members who are working for the client. The team may include doctors, nurses, lab staff who may carry tests, social workers etc.

This ensures that clear information regarding client treatment is passed to the team members who look after the clients well-being. Furthermore, not sharing information may lead to incomplete treatment or service.

In case of what information should be shared and with whom, professionals should discuss it with their client how to disclose the information if the need comes. They should both discuss what information should be shared, what circumstances the information and to whom the information will be shared.

The information should only be shared for the client’s betterment and sharing irrelevant while private data should be avoided.

Caregivers should also share information that seems like a threat to the client, but the client does not consent to share the information. 

3. Data that is shared for the advantage of society should be provided anonymously. 

Much information regarding clients anatomy might be useful for research that is working on the betterment of society. In that case, the client’s consent should be taken at first and the client’s identity must be kept secret.

Even when the information is shared anonymously, it has to be given to some trusted authority who will also take care of the information. Information shouldn’t be used for mischievous purposes.

Confidential information may need to be used under extraordinary situations, but this requires the permission of the client or other legal ground that permits or regulates sharing.

In case of a legal obligation to disclose confidential information, a caregiver and the client might have to agree with the legal authority. This too shall be carried out officially and privately by a legal officer. 

Individual who is sharing the information has the right to know:

4. If an individual does not give consent to share particular pieces of information, that should be respected. 

Clients are entitled to object to the use or exchange of sensitive information outside their care. If a person objectifies to share information with others, it is mandatory to follow that unless it may cause harm to the client. 

By all means, an individual’s say on preserving their privacy should be honoured. If an objection is made to the disclosure of confidential information, it can be exchanged anonymously.

In exceptional situations where an objection’s possible implications pose a risk, the objection might be overruled with proper explanation.

5. To follow confidentiality rules, organisations must ensure that they have an adequate system for maintaining confidentiality. 

Organisations must ensure adequate protection, legislation, procedures and training and education for employees of the organisational and technical structures to ensure secure and proper sharing of sensitive information.

An authoritative person of the organisation should ensure that all the policies and rules regarding confidentiality are strictly followed. 

An organisation may complete an Information Governance Toolkit Assessment (IGT) so that employees know what rules to follow. They should also ensure that if confidentiality policies are breached there ways to report them and authoritative action is taken against it.