Caldicott Guardians

The Caldicott review and the Data Protection Act 1998 enforce strict legal guidelines to the storage, maintenance and access to patient information. Caldicott Guardians are responsible for agreeing and reviewing protocols for the use of patient-identifiable information (PII) by NHS staff, including PII shared with partner NHS organisations or with other non-NHS partner organisations  eg Universities, social work services. Patient Identifiable Information (PII) means any data item or combination of data items by which a patient's identity may be established.

The six Caldicott principles are

1.     Justify the purpose(s) of using confidential information

2.     Only use it when absolutely necessary

3.     Use the minimum that is required

4.     Access should be on a strict need-to-know basis

5.     Everyone must understand his or her responsibilities

6.     Understand and comply with the law

The Caldicott Guardians for NHS Tayside are

If you need to obtain Caldicott Guardian approval for the use of PII in clinical research within NHS Tayside, you should send an NHS Tayside Caldicott Guardian Application  form to the Information Governance Team at informationgovernance.tayside@nhs.net. You can also contact the Team for advice on 01382 424413 (external) or 70413 (NHS internal).

If you need to obtain approval for research which will use multi-Board PII you should do so via the NHS Scotland Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social CarE.  Information regarding the Panel and the application process can be found here

For postgraduate clinical research within the School of Medicine there is a separate Caldicott Approval pathway. Information regarding this can be found here http://graduate.cmdn.dundee.ac.uk/caldicott-guardian

If you have any general queries regarding Caldicott Approval for clinical research contact the TASC 01382 383900

Further information regarding Caldicott Guardians can be found here http://www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/caldicottguardians.aspx

The NHS Scotland Code of Practice on Protecting Patient Confidentiality can be accessed here