Confidentiality In Social Care Essay

Social care is built around trust, privacy and confidentiality. Once an individual with a learning disability has been placed into social care they must be confident that the private information that is shared with trusted care workers remains confidential.

Care professionals are legally bound to respect the privacy and confidentiality of their clients.

The issue of confidentiality is one of the fundamental principles in understanding individual needs and meeting the need for care and support. Confidentiality is derived from the word 'confide' and its meaning is described as to trust wholly or have faith in.

Confidentiality is depicted also as an 'ethic', and ethics are described as the science of morals, a system of morals, rules of behaviour or professional standards of conduct. At first glance a concept of confidentiality may appear simple, but it is actually quite complex. Its origins are found in natural law and moral responsibility, but now it is also surrounded by legal requirements, organisational policy and procedure.

Every individual has the right to privacy. Privacy requires that facts or information which have been shared by someone with another party remain private and are not disclosed without the permission of the person who gave them. Such a situation, especially in an informal relationship, is based on personal trust. This trust has generally been built up over a period of time, together with perceptions as to whether the person who is to be given the privileged information is considered to have the integrity to protect the information and not disclose it. Clearly, in an informal relationship, if we felt the person could not be trusted we would not divulge information to