Although the issue of confidentiality and information sharing hasn't made it onto our Mental Health Wish List it has cropped up several times as a discussion point over the past few months. Rethink recently sent through some guidance on information sharing from the Department of Health. The report, 'Information Sharing and Mental Health', touches on some of the issues that we've discussed - that service users have a right to access information that impacts on them and that carers often feel that information is withheld from them unnecessarily. The guide is intended mostly for health professionals and is primarily focussed on sharing of information between statutory and non-statutory organisations. So, it doesn't directly address the issues we've been discussing as a group but does give a useful insight into the difficulties that professionals face. However, the guide does reference a report by Rethink for the Department of Health, published in 2004 , 'Positive and Inclusive: Effective ways for professionals to include carers in information sharing' which does look exclusively at information sharing with carers. It's a pretty long report (over 200 pages) but it is summarised - p.9 lists the main results and p.11 the main recommendations.
Our group is developing our partnership with the Manchester Carers Centre (Carers Trust) to provide a confidential support group for carers. It will be an opportunity for carers to share their experiences in confidence with other carers of those who have a mental or physical illness. A carer can be anyone who cares for or about someone and can be a partner, sibling, family member, friend, colleague, neighbour etc. We will keep you informed about when this new service will start.
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