A Caldicott Guardian is responsible for protecting the confidentiality of people’s health and care information, and making sure such data is used properly.
Since 2002 all NHS organisations and local authorities which provide social services must have Caldicott Guardians, ours are:
- Michael Melvin, Director Safeguarding Adults
The role of Caldicott Guardians
These directors are 'senior roles' with in our social care teams, they oversee the arrangements for using and sharing of clinical information.
They are responsible for:
- promoting information governance
- facilitating good practice in information sharing
- promoting the national approach to handling confidential information
The Caldicott Guardian Manual gives further details about their responsibilities which are based on 6 principles, relating to data handling:
- justifying the purposes for using confidential information
- only using confidential information when absolutely necessary
- using the minimum confidential information that's required
- access to confidential information being on a strict 'need to know' basis
- everybody understanding their own responsibilities
- understanding and complying with the law
Find out more about the National Register of Caldicott Guardians from at Digital NHS.
Also see
Caldicott Guardians
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