The Caldicott report was the product of a review of personally-identifiable information in 1997. It recommended that “Guardians” of personal information be created to safeguard and govern the uses made of confidential information within NHS organisations.
The Caldicott principles and processes provide a framework of quality standards for the management of confidentiality and access to personal information under the leadership of a Caldicott Guardian. It is now proposed that the Caldicott standards be extended into Councils with Social Services Responsibilities in the performance of their social services functions, particularly where these also involve links to other local authority services.
This implementation part of the strategy of partnership working. It is focused on promoting equivalent confidentiality and security standards across social and health services and other local authority functions related through strategies, and is strongly supported by the Information Policy Unit responsible for similar work in the NHS, and also by the Association of Directors of Social Services.
All social services authorities in England are supposed to have nominated a Caldicott Guardian by 1st September 2001.
A new national direction around information management for the NHS, will influence the implementation of Caldicott into Social Care. The development of an ‘Information Governance’ framework is now underway, and this will seek to clarify the interdependencies between information initiatives such as Caldicott, Information Security Management, Records Management, and related legislation such as the Data Protection and Human Rights Acts. It is anticipated that this new framework will bring together all the requirements, limits and best practice that apply to the processing of confidential personally identifiable information.
An electronic Toolkit is being made available to social services Caldicott guardians. One of the recurring requests during the consultation process was for the provision of ‘signposts’ to relevant examples of good practice, appropriate guidance material and related legislation – particularly in respect of each of the performance measures in the Management Audit.
Each Caldicott Guardian will receive one pack free of charge. The pack will be accompanied by a covering letter to social services explaining that the content has been designed for the NHS, but that the intention is for the products to be tailored over time to include ‘social services specific’ scenarios and information.
The toolkit comes as a ‘pack’ which contains a video with 16 scenarios, each showing security and confidentiality breaches, along with an accompanying booklet and a very comprehensive CD. The CD is web-enabled and is designed in such a way as to take the user through each performance measure in the Management Audit, with the opportunity at each measure to investigate four routes to further relevant resources. The four routes for further information are :
organisation
people
education, training and awareness
From the second week in October, the Caldicott Guardian Toolkit Pack will be distributed by the NHS Information Authority to all Caldicott Guardians, including Social Services.
Before the end of the financial year 2001/2 it is intended that there will also be :
dedicated pages for Caldicott/Information Governance on the ADSS-IMG website at www.ssimg.freeserve.co.uk <http://www.ssimg.freeserve.co.uk/>
As more information is made available details will also be posted on the :
ADSS IMG website at www.ssimg.freeserve.co.uk <http://www.ssimg.freeserve.co.uk/>
NHS confidentiality website at www.doh.gov.uk/nhsexipu/confiden <http://www.doh.gov.uk/nhsexipu/confiden>