Meet the Team

What is ‘safeguarding’ and why is it important to us?

Safeguarding means protecting a citizen’s health, wellbeing and human rights; enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. It is an integral part of providing high-quality health care.  Safeguarding children, young people and adults is a collective responsibility.

Those most in need of protection include:

• Children and young people
• Adults at risk, such as those receiving care in their own home, people with physical, sensory and mental impairments, and those with learning disabilities.
• All staff, whether they work in a hospital, a care home, in general practice, or in providing community care, and whether they are employed by a public sector, private, or not-for-profit organisation, have a responsibility to safeguard children and adults at risk of abuse or neglect in the NHS.

The GP lead for Adult and Child Safeguarding at New Lyminge Surgery is Dr R Hazledene

The Administrative lead for Adult and Child Safeguarding at New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene

The SIRO is responsible for managing information risks and should be expected to understand how the strategic business goals of the organisation may be impacted by information risks.  The SIRO will act as an advocate for information risk and is an essential role in ensuring that identified information security risks are followed up and incidents managed and should have ownership of the Information Risk Policy and associated risk management strategy and processes. He / she will provide leadership and guidance to a number of Information Asset Owners.

The key responsibilities of the SIRO are to:

• Oversee the development of an Information Risk Policy, and a strategy for implementing the policy within the existing Information Governance framework.
• Take ownership of the risk assessment process for information and cyber security risk, including review of an annual information risk
• Review and agree action in respect of identified information risks.
• Ensure that the organisation’s approach to information risk is effective in terms of resource, commitment and execution and that this is communicated to all staff.
• Provide a focal point for the resolution and / or discussion of information risk issues. f. Ensure the board is adequately briefed on information risk issues.
• Ensure that all care systems

The Senior Risk Information Officer for New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene, Practice Manager

What is a Caldicott Guardian?

A Caldicott Guardian is a senior role for an organisation which processes health and social care personal data. They make sure that the personal information about those who use the organisation’s services is used legally, ethically and appropriately, and that confidentiality is maintained. Caldicott Guardians should be able to provide leadership and informed guidance on complex matters involving confidentiality and information sharing. 

The Caldicott Guardian should play a key role in ensuring that their organisation satisfies the highest practical standards for handling person-identifiable information. Their main concern is information relating to individuals and their care, but the need for confidentiality extends to other individuals, including their relatives, staff and others. Organisations typically store, manage and share personal information relating to staff, and the same standards should be applied to this as to the confidentiality of patient information. 

Caldicott Guardians should apply the eight Caldicott Principles wisely, using common sense and an understanding of the law. They should also be compassionate and courageous, recognising that their decisions will affect real people—some of whom they may never meet. The importance of the Caldicott Guardian acting as “the conscience of the organisation” remains central to trusting the impartiality and independence of their advice.

The Caldicott Guardian for New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene, Practice Manager

Principle 1: Justify the purpose(s) for using confidential information

Every proposed use or transfer of confidential information should be clearly defined, scrutinised and documented, with continuing uses regularly reviewed by an appropriate guardian.

Principle 2: Use confidential information only when it is necessary

Confidential information should not be included unless it is necessary for the specified purpose(s) for which the information is used or accessed. The need to identify individuals should be considered at each stage of satisfying the purpose(s) and alternatives used where possible.

Principle 3: Use the minimum necessary confidential information

Where use of confidential information is considered to be necessary, each item of information must be justified so that only the minimum amount of confidential information is included as necessary for a given function.

Principle 4: Access to confidential information should be on a strict need-to-know basis

Only those who need access to confidential information should have access to it, and then only to the items that they need to see. This may mean introducing access controls or splitting information flows where one flow is used for several purposes.

Principle 5: Everyone with access to confidential information should be aware of their responsibilities

Action should be taken to ensure that all those handling confidential information understand their responsibilities and obligations to respect the confidentiality of patient and service users.

Principle 6: Comply with the law

Every use of confidential information must be lawful. All those handling confidential information are responsible for ensuring that their use of and access to that information complies with legal requirements set out in statute and under the common law.

Principle 7: The duty to share information for individual care is as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality

Health and social care professionals should have the confidence to share confidential information in the best interests of patients and service users within the framework set out by these principles. They should be supported by the policies of their employers, regulators and professional bodies.

Principle 8: Inform patients and service users about how their confidential information is used

A range of steps should be taken to ensure no surprises for patients and service users, so they can have clear expectations about how and why their confidential information is used, and what choices they have about this. These steps will vary depending on the use: as a minimum, this should include providing accessible, relevant and appropriate information – in some cases, greater engagement will be required.

The Department of Health response to the Caldicott 2 Review contains an expectation that organisations across health and social care strengthen their leadership on information governance through ensuring that Caldicott Guardians, Senior Information Risk Owners and appropriate information governance staff are in place, trained and have time to focus on information governance.  Under the approved arrangements, the IG Lead is accountable for ensuring effective management, accountability, compliance and assurance for all aspects of IG.

The key tasks of an IG Lead include:

• Developing and maintaining the currency of comprehensive and appropriate documentation that demonstrates commitment to and ownership of IG responsibilities, e.g. an overarching high-level strategy document supported by corporate and/or directorate policies and procedures
• Ensuring that there is top level awareness and support for IG resourcing and implementation of improvements
• Providing direction in formulating, establishing and promoting IG policies
• Establishing working groups, if necessary, to co-ordinate the activities of staff given IG responsibilities and progress initiatives
• Ensuring annual assessments using the DSPT and audits of DSPT policies and arrangements are carried out, documented and reported, in line with the requirements of the NHS Standard Contract;
• Ensuring that the annual assessment and improvement plans are prepared for approval by the senior level of management, e.g. the board or senior management team, in a timely manner. For example, for NHS Trusts, sign off may be scheduled in advance of the end of financial year submission on the 31 March each year
• Ensuring that the approach to information handling is communicated to all staff and made available to the public
• Ensuring that information governance staff understand the need to support the safe sharing of personal confidential data for direct care, as well as the need to protect individuals’ confidentiality
• Ensuring that appropriate training is made available to all staff and completed as necessary to support their duties. For NHS organisations, this will need to be in line with the mandate for all staff to be trained annually and should take into account the findings of The National Data Guardian review: “Recommendations to improve security of health and care information and ensure people can make informed choices about how their data is used”, and the government’s response to the review. 
• Liaising with other committees, working groups and programme boards in order to promote and integrate IG standards
• Monitoring information handling activities to ensure compliance with law and guidance
• Providing a focal point for the resolution and/or discussion of IG issues

The Information Governance Lead for New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene, Practice Manager

The DPO’s responsibilities include: 

• Informing and advising organisations about complying with GDPR and other data protection laws.
• Monitoring compliance with GDPR and data protection laws – including staff training and internal audits.
• Advising on and monitoring data protection impact assessments.
• Cooperating with the ICO.
• Being the first contact point for the ICO and citizens in terms of data processing

The GP Data Protection Officer for New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene, Practice Manager

Pamela Ashe, GP Data Protection Officer (DPO)

Information Governance Team

Corporate Services Directorate

NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group

Tel:  01634 335259

Email: kmccg.northkentgpdataprotection@nhs.net

Website:  www.kentandmedwayccg.nhs.uk

As part of the NHS England Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) Framework, providers and commissioners of NHS funded services must show they can effectively respond to major, critical and business continuity incidents whilst maintaining services to patients.  Organisations should have provision in place to regularly assess the risks to the population it serves. 

Organisations must have an appointed Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO) who is and responsible for EPRR in their organisation. 

The NHS Core Standards for EPRR cover ten domains:

1. Governance
2. Duty to risk assess
3. Duty to maintain plans
4. Command and control
5. Training and exercising
6. Response
7. Warning and informing
8. Cooperation
9. Business continuity
10. Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) and Hazardous Material (HAZMAT)

Click on this message to see the full document

The Accountable Emergency Officer for New Lyminge Surgery is Nathan Hazledene, Practice Manager

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance) (updated July 2015), requires every Primary Care Provider to have an Infection Prevention & Control Lead.

The IPC Lead is responsible for leading and maintaining an effective local infection prevention & control programme. This involves identifying infection risks to the practice, its patients, visitors and staff, and taking responsibility for implementing and monitoring actions to minimise and manage those risks.

The Infection prevention and control lead for New Lyminge Surgery is Sarah Powell, Practice Nurse

Significant Events should act as a learning process for the whole practice. Individual SEs can be shared between members of staff, including GPs, and should focus on disseminating learning within the practice.

The aims of undertaking SE analysis is to:

• Identify events in individual cases that have been critical (beneficial or detrimental to the outcome) and to improve the quality of patient care from the lessons learnt.
• Instigate a culture of openness and reflective learning, not individual blame or self-criticism
• Enable team-building and support following stressful episodes
• Enable identification of good as well as suboptimal practice
• Be a useful tool for team and individual continuing professional development, identifying group and individual learning needs
• Share learning between teams within the NHS where adverse events occur at the ‘overlap’ or in shared domains of clinical responsibility (such as out-of-hours, discharge problems).

The lead for Significant Events at New Lyminge Surgery is Dr J Bryant