Responsibilities of practice staff

All health professionals must follow their professional codes of practice and the law. This means that they must make every effort to protect confidentiality. It also means that no identifiable information about a patient is passed to anyone or any agency without the express permission of that patient, except when this is essential for providing care or necessary to protest somebody’s health, safety or wellbeing.

All health professionals are individually accountable for their own actions. They should, however, also work together as a team to ensure that standards of confidentiality are upheld, and that improper disclosures are avoided.

Employer responsibilities

The GPs at Chet Valley Medical practice, as employers:

• Are responsible for ensuring that everybody employed by the practice understands the need for, and maintains, confidentiality.
• Have overall responsibility for ensuring that systems and mechanisms are in place to protect confidentiality.
• Have vicarious liability for the actions of those working in the practice- including health professionals and non-clinical staff (i.e. those not employed directly by the practice but who work in the practice).