A Caldicott Guardian is a senior person responsible for ensuring the protection and confidentiality of people's health and care information and making sure it is used properly.

Our Caldicott Guardians

All NHS organisations and local authorities that provide social services must have Caldicott Guardians, ours are:

  • Andrea Green for children’s services
  • Anne Flanagan for adult social care

What Caldicott Guardians do

Caldicott Guardians are responsible for overseeing the use of clinical information and how it is shared. They ensure that personal information is used legally, ethically and appropriately, and that confidentiality is maintained appropriately.

The Guardian plays a key role in ensuring that the Council and our partner organisations satisfy the highest possible standards for handling personal information. 

The Caldicott principles

The Caldicott Guardian Manual gives further details about their responsibilities which are based on 6 principles, relating to data handling:

  • justifying the purposes for using confidential information
  • only using confidential information when absolutely necessary
  • using the minimum confidential information that's required
  • access to confidential information being on a strict 'need to know' basis
  • everybody understanding their own responsibilities
  • understanding and complying with the law

Caldicott Guardians and the Data Protection Act 1998

The Data Protection Act 2018 is the legislation covering all aspects of information processing. This includes security and confidentiality of personal information.

The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government.

The Caldicott requirements provide the framework to put the Data Protection Act into operation.

Find out more about the National Register of Caldicott Guardians on Digital NHS.