Explain Why It Is Important To Govern The Access To And Use Of Confidential Information

Confidentiality applies to the children act in many ways it protects children and young peoples information from being put into the wrong hands although the children act does state that the person can obtain the information being held themselves as because of data protection you have the right to access your own files.

This act applies to all organisations that process data relating to their staff and customers. It is the main legal framework in UK that protects personal data. The act contains 8 data protection principles which are:

Each organisation has its own strategic goals and objectives. Take hospital discharge as an example, discharge patient when they are medically fit it is the priority so they will have more beds available for patients who are in need. However, from care home’s point of view, meeting residents’ needs are more important. Therefore ways to overcome these organisational differences can be identified by Improve understanding of other people’s roles, responsibilities and challenges, which led to achieving common objectives. Still using the same example of hospital admission and discharging, care home can work closely with local GP or even professionals from hospital to come up with agreed ways of working to prevent hospital admission. In our local area, we have elderly care specialist nurse from surgery to visit care homes to review resident’s medical needs so to reduce the case of hospital admission. In addition, the surgery will make a courtesy call to care home if their resident has been discharged from hospital recently to provide support and advise so to reduce hospital

All of the staff need to make sure that confidentiality is paramount. Staff have to read and understand the Data Protection Act of 1998. We have to make sure that we are clear about our standards of conduct, that we are expected to meet. We are encouraged to use the codes of conduct to maintain our own practice

Therefore every care practitioner should endeavour to promote theses rights when dealing with services users and their relatives. Furthermore, it is crucial for service users to understand that any information they give will be with strict confidentiality. It is a legal requirement for health and social care services to keep personal data confidential.

Within the health and social care setting there are numerous peices of legislation and codes of practice designed to protect individuals.These are there to protect from breaches of confidentiality were the information held on that individual is only viewed by staff directly involved in their care.

given extra safeguards for sensitive information – e.g. ethnicity, political views, religion, health or criminal records

The Data Protection Act states that you must only collect information that you need for a specific purpose and keep it secure, ensure that it is relevant and up to date to guarantee that no changes in medication or health status goes unnoticed or unaccounted

I intend to look at why confidentiality is so important within healthcare and how it relates to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) Code. I will look at the

Confirm identity, gain consent, and share only when and where necessary i.e. the information which is being requested is relevant to the person’s job role or treatment plan. Share and store and send in a secure environment such as encrypted emails. Do not store in unlocked or unattended environments. Do not use any confidential information other than for its intended use. Do not alter, sell or pass on confidential information to any 3rd party. Social media and mobile phones are prohibited in our workplace. Staff face disciplinary action if found in breach of our company policies. Our staffs are also restricted in taking personal information

The Data Protection Act 1998 is a piece of legislation that controls how an individual’s personal information is used by organisations, businesses and the government. This Act ensures that HR departments only collect data from individuals is covered by what we are allowed to collect under the Act, relevant and not excessive, we must also be sure that data is not stored for longer than necessary. We must ensure that data is stored securely and confidentially; and that we are open about the reasons why we are collecting and storing the data.

The Data Protection Act 1998 defines UK law on the processing of data on identifiable living people. The act contains eight principles, which all organisations processing personal information must conform to, these are:

This act links to an individual who has dementia as if their personal information at the doctors or in an elderly care home then these organisations need to ensure that these eight principles are followed.

Are all laws put into place to help protect an individual from abuse whilst ensuring they can still for fill their right and maintain a sense of individuality. If the person is in care the organisation will have policy’s and procedures in place to risk asses and ensure the protection of the carers, organisation and the individual from danger, harm and abuse.

By law healthcare workers cannot give out any patients’ information without permission from the patient. If the patient is eighteen, or older we now collect signatures for the consent forms. If the patient's under eighteen registration has the guardians sign for their behalf. By signing the consent forms it states that the patient understands that everything is confidential, registration or any other employee can not tell anyone their information outside the work area. Documenting everything is important for the patient's care in every way you look at