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SHS SIGNATORIES |
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PROFESSIONALS ISSUE WARNING ON THREATS TO CONFIDENTIAL ADVICE FOR TEENAGERS Health professionals, teachers, youth organisations and human rights groups have issued a joint statement that warns against changes to confidentiality rules when advice and information is given to young people on sexual matters. Some local authorities have already adopted protocols that require professionals to conduct personal assessments on all under-18s believed to be in sexual relationships, to share information about those relationships with others and to make police checks on young people and their partners. The Information Commissioner is investigating complaints that the police will hold all enquiries that they receive about young people on ‘soft’ intelligence files. Practitioners are extremely concerned that the protocols may soon become government policy when it brings out the new version of the national guidance, ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’. They caution that any change in current levels of confidentiality could have serious consequences for the health of young people, and for the public health.
SIGNATORIES: British Medical Association Royal College of General Practitioners Royal College of Nursing Royal Institute of Public Health Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ARCH (Action on Rights for Children) Association of Teachers and Lecturers Association of Directors of Public Health British Association for Sexual Health and HIV Brook Children’s Rights Alliance for England Education for Choice English Secondary Students Association Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Faculty of Public Health of the RCP FPA (Family Planning Association) Independent Schools Council Liberty Medical Foundation for AIDS & Sexual Health (MedFASH) Medical Women's Federation National Youth Agency Privacy International Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel Terrence Higgins Trust Youth Access |
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