The Government has appointed Dame Fiona Caldicott to lead a review into protecting patient information.
In January, the Government accepted the Future Forum’s recommendation for this review which will look at the balance between protecting patient information and its sharing.
Dame Fiona is the originator of ‘Caldicott Guardians’, the individuals responsible in every NHS and local authority organisation for making decisions about sharing identifiable information. This requires balancing the public interest of protecting confidential information with the public interest for sharing the information. She will be calling on an expert panel made up of clinical, social care, research and other professionals, as well as patients and service users. The panel will determine the detailed scope and priorities for the review.
The review will be independent of Government and will report to the Secretary of State. The Department of Health expects to respond to the panel’s recommendations when the review is published during 2012.
Dame Fiona Caldicott said: “It is timely to reconsider the principles of information protection and sharing. Since the original working group’s report on the security of patients’ information in 1997, it has become clear that there is sometimes a lack of understanding about the rules and this can act as a barrier to exchanging information that would benefit the patient. On other occasions, this has resulted in too much information being disclosed. These are issues of importance to everyone who uses health or social care services and our review will look across both sectors. We need to examine when and how to seek and record consent, to support the flow of information to enhance patient and citizen care.”
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