Confidentiality & Safeguarding in private health care


Confidentiality and Information sharing: 

  1. The service I offer is confidential. Any information you share will usually not be shared with another agency without your consent. 
  2. Confidentiality is never absolute, the following caveats, restrictions and legal obligations may apply:

Confidentiality and information sharing rules apply to any private medical assessment and treatment including an independent child and adolescent psychiatric practice/service. The following principles apply.  

  • Usually, a copy of the assessment report/summary is shared with the GP / referrer. Our practice requires you to take responsibility to share information with all concerned professionals, failing this it may be obligated on us to do so in the context of child protection or safeguarding concerns. 
  • Risk to any person may need to be shared with relevant agencies. 
  • Schools benefit from being made aware of some if not all facts so they can support the young person appropriately. 
  • Young people above 16 and at times above the age of 14 may have the competence to withhold information they share from their parent / guardian. However any risk issues will have to be shared. 
  • Courts may order release of reports and notes, there is an obligation this is done in full by law. 
  • Similarly, the law places a responsibility on professionals to report any safeguarding matters to appropriate agencies such as social services. It is in such circumstances that we would have to share information with other agencies such as GP, School or Social Services directly. 
I approach the above matters with openness and transparency. In my experience it is almost always possible to negotiate and agree what gets shared with whom, when and how with a view to ensuring the best interest of the young person is prioritised. 
The Caldicott principles are used by health professionals, you can read more about this here.