RCGP Safeguarding toolkit

Information sharing and the law

There are a number of laws and principles that govern information sharing across the four UK nations which include the common law, data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018)), human rights legislation, and mental capacity legislation. As health and social care laws are devolved to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, practitioners should consider how legislation impacts them in relation to their relevant part of the UK.