The following is a summary of the Practitioners Guide to Information Sharing which has been published by the DfES, the full text of which can be accessed at the Every Child Matters website
See “Information Sharing: Further Guidance on Legal Issues” and “Information Sharing: Case Examples” (which can be found at the same website address.
For doctors, useful guidance is contained in the General Medical Council Guidance for Doctors on 0 to 18 year olds.
| 1.1 | Sharing information is vital for early intervention to ensure that children with additional needs receive the services they require. It is also essential to protect children from suffering harm from abuse or neglect and to prevent them from offending. |
| 1.2 | Practitioners must always consider the safety and welfare of a child when making decisions on whether to share information about the child. Where there is concern that the child may be suffering or is at risk of suffering Significant Harm, the child’s safety and welfare must be the overriding consideration. |
| 1.3 | Information sharing and making a referral can be different actions. The parties involved will need to clarify the purpose of sharing information and what the respective agencies will do in response to receiving the information. |
| 2.1 | Practitioners should explain to children and families when they first receive services, openly and honestly, what and how information will, or could be shared and why, and seek their agreement. |
| 2.2 | The exception to this is where to do so would put that child or others at increased risk of Significant Harm or an adult at risk of serious harm, or if it would undermine the prevention, detection or prosecution of a serious crime (i.e. any crime which causes or is likely to cause significant harm to a child or serious harm to an adult) including where seeking consent might lead to interference with any potential investigation. |
| 2.3 | Practitioners should, where possible, respect the wishes of children or families who do not consent to share confidential information. However, they may still share information if in their judgement there is sufficient need to override that lack of consent. |
| 2.4 | Practitioners should seek advice where they are in doubt, especially where the doubt relates to a concern about possible Significant Harm to a child or serious harm to others. |
| 2.5 | Practitioners should ensure that the information they share is accurate and up-to-date, necessary for the purpose for which they are sharing it, shared only with those people who need to see it, and shared securely. |
| 2.6 | Practitioners should always record the reasons for their decision – whether it is to share information or not. |
| 2.7 | Practitioners must share information when they are in situations where there is a statutory duty or Court Order requiring the information to be shared. In such situations, information should be shared even if consent has not been given. However, wherever possible, the individual concerned should be informed about the information to be shared, the reasons and to whom it will be disclosed. |
| 3.1 | Sharing information is essential to enable early intervention to help children and families who need additional services to achieve positive outcomes, thus reducing inequalities between disadvantaged children and others. |
| 3.2 | Information sharing is also vital to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. A key factor in many Serious Case Reviews has been a failure to record information, to share it, to understand the significance of the information shared, and to take appropriate action in relation to known or suspected abuse or neglect. |
| 3.3 |
Practitioners can sometimes feel constrained from sharing information by their uncertainty about when they can do so lawfully. It is important therefore that practitioners:
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| 4.1 | It is important that each agency involved in providing services to children and families has a systematic approach to explain to children and families when they first access the service how and why information may be shared, which will build the confidence of all involved. In Walsall's Child Concern Model, Appendix 3, Sharing Information and Appendix 4, Young Person’s Guide to Sharing Information contain explanatory notes for parents and children and forms for their written consent to be recorded. |
| 4.2 | Agencies should make arrangements to ensure that members of their staff in contact with children and families are familiar with Walsall's Child Concern Model, which provides guidance on information sharing in relation to children in need in Walsall and, in particular, that:
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| 5.1 |
In deciding whether there is a need to share information you need to consider your legal obligations including:
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| 5.2 | Confidence is only breached where the sharing of confidential information is not authorised by the person who provided it or to whom it relates. If the information was provided on the understanding that it would be shared with a limited range of people or for limited purposes, then sharing in accordance with that understanding will not be a breach of confidence. Similarly, there will not be a breach of confidence where there is explicit consent to the sharing. |
| 5.3 | Even where sharing of confidential information is not authorised, it may lawfully be shared if this can be justified in the public interest. Seeking consent should be the first option, if appropriate. Where consent cannot be obtained to the sharing of the information or is refused, or where seeking it is likely to undermine the prevention, detection or prosecution of a crime, the question of whether there is a sufficient public interest must be judged by the practitioner on the facts of each case. Therefore, where a practitioner has a concern about a child, he or she should not regard refusal of consent as necessarily precluding the sharing of confidential information. |
| 5.4 | A public interest can arise in a wide range of circumstances, for example, to protect children or other people from harm, to promote the welfare of children or to prevent crime and disorder. There are also public interests, which in some circumstances may weigh against sharing, including the public interest in maintaining public confidence in the confidentiality of certain services. The key factor in deciding whether or not to share confidential information is proportionality, i.e. whether the proposed sharing is a response in proportion to the need to protect the public interest in question. In making the decision, the practitioner must weigh up what might happen if the information is shared against what might happen if it is not, and make a decision based on a reasonable judgement. |
| 5.5 |
It is not possible to give guidance to cover every circumstance in which sharing of confidential information without consent will be justified. It is possible however to identify some circumstances in which sharing confidential information without consent will normally be justified in the public interest. These are:
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