Permission, Confidentiality and privacy

Permission

The AMHP will ask for your permission to share your personal information with the mental health crisis breathing space scheme. This is because social care and healthcare professionals must keep your details confidential.

This requirement is separate from the protection provided by the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you do not have the mental capacity to give permission (that is, you cannot make the decision to give your permission), the AMHP may ask someone who can make decisions on your behalf for permission. This might be a person with a lasting power of attorney for financial matters, or a deputy appointed by the Court of Protection. If the AMHP cannot find someone who can give them permission, they must carry out a ‘best interests’ assessment under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 before sharing information about you.

Confidentiality and privacy

Under the breathing space regulations and data protection legislation, all the organisations involved in the scheme must protect your personal information.

We will keep all the information you give us confidential. We will only share it with other organisations if you give us your permission or if we are allowed to do so under the Data Protection Act 2018.

We are the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018. This means that we are responsible for making decisions about how we use your personal information. We have a security procedure to protect information we hold in paper files and on our computers, and only the relevant staff – including AMHPs – can have access to your information.

You have a right to know how your personal information has been shared in the scheme. If you want to know more about this, your nominated point of contact or the debt advice provider can answer your questions and tell you where to find the relevant privacy notices.