The implementation of the CPA does not effect the service user's right to confidentiality in any way. All information relating to service users remains confidential. This advice for the sharing of information is aimed to assist staff who are working together delivering personal care and treatment to and managing the clinical risk posed by individuals in receipt of services. Whilst it is vital for the proper care of individuals that those concerned with that care have ready access to the information that they need to deliver it, it is also important that service user's and their carers can trust that personal information will be kept confidential and that their privacy is respected.
All staff have an obligation to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information.
This is to comply with law, their contracts of employment, and in many cases by professional codes of conduct. All staff should be made aware that breach of confidentiality could be a matter for disciplinary action and provides grounds for complaint against them. This is contingent on the individuals having been fully informed of the uses to which information about them may be put. Clarity about the purposes to which personal information is to be put is essential, and only the minimum information necessary to satisfy that purpose should be made available. Access to personal information should be on a strict need to know basis.