Caldicott Principles and FOI

A Caldicott Guardian is a senior member of staff with responsibilities for protecting the confidentiality of patient and service-user information and enabling appropriate information-sharing.

The Caldicott Guardian for Western Medical Services Limited is Mr Timothy Steel, Lead Emergency Care Assistant and Head of Welfare.

Timothy can be contacted at: timothy.steel@westernmedicalservices.co.uk

The Caldicott Report sets out a number of general principles which health and social care organisations should use when reviewing their use of patient/client information and these are set out below:

1. Justify the purpose(s) – Every single 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.
2. Don’t use patient identifiable information unless it is necessary – Patient identifiable information items should not be included unless it is essential for the specified purpose(s) of that flow. The need for patients to be identified should be considered at each stage of satisfying the purpose(s).
3. Use the minimum necessary patient-identifiable information – Where use of patient identifiable information is considered to be essential, the inclusion of each individual item of information should be considered and justified so that the minimum amount of identifiable information is transferred or accessible as is necessary for a given function to be carried out.
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. This may mean introducing access controls or splitting information flows where one information flow is used for several purposes.
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 obligations to respect patient confidentiality.
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.
7. The duty to share information can be as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality – Professionals should in the patient’s interest share information within this framework. Official policies should support them doing so.