The Data Protection Act only applies to records relating to living individuals, but we still owe a duty of confidence to the deceased and their families.
All employees of Ipswich Hospital are responsible for maintaining patient and staff confidentiality. The duty of confidentiality is written into employment contracts and a breach of confidentiality, whether directly or indirectly, is a disciplinary offence that could result in dismissal and/or prosecution under the Data Protection Act.
Our patients and staff expect that information about them will be treated as confidential. Those patients who feel that their confidence has been breached are entitled to lodge a complaint under the NHS Complaints Procedure or take legal action against the Trust. If the issue cannot be resolved internally you can ask the Information Commissioner’s Office to assess the Trust’s compliance with the Act.
The underlying principle is that we must treat all information that can be related to a living individual as confidential and we must not communicate it to anyone who is not authorised to receive it. In this case, unauthorised persons include Trust staff not involved in either the clinical care of a patient or the associated administration processes. In the case of staff records, unauthorised persons include Trust staff not involved in the management of that member of staff or associated administrative processes.
Confidentiality
We ask you for your personal information so that you can receive care and treatment.
We keep this information, together with details of your care, because it may be needed if we see you again.
We may use some of this information for other reasons: for example, to help us protect the health of the public generally and to see that the NHS runs efficiently, plans for the future, trains its staff, pays its bills and can account for its actions.
Information may also be needed to help educate tomorrow's clinical staff and to carry out medical and other health research for the benefit of everyone.
You may be receiving care from other people as well as the NHS. So that we can all work together for your benefit we may need to share some information about you. We only ever use or pass on information about you if people have a genuine need for it in your and everyone's interest. The sharing of some types of very sensitive personal information is strictly controlled by law. Whenever we can we remove details which identify you. Sometimes the law requires us to pass on information: for example, to notify a birth.
Anyone who receives information from us is under legal duty to keep it confidential.
Everyone working for the NHS has a legal duty to keep information about you confidential and you have the right to say no if you do not want information about you given to others.
If at anytime you would like to know more about how we use your information you can speak to the person in charge of your care or ask any member of staff.
