NHS Lanarkshire’s information governance team is made up of six members:
- Michelle Nobes, information governance manager and data protection officer
- Alan Topping, data protection manager
- Irene McGarrigle, data protection advisor
- Pamela Meikle, data protection analyst
- Kathryn Ferguson, data protection analyst
- Michelle Drever, data protection analyst
Information governance is a series of best practice guidelines and principles of the law to be followed by NHS Lanarkshire when using person identifiable information. Every member of staff has a responsibility to keep all personal and sensitive information secure. You can do this by:
- adhering to policies;
- protecting information physically;
- practice safe password management;
- transfer information securely;
- reporting all actual and potential incidents of security immediately.
Michelle Nobes said: “Every day is a school day – you think you’ve heard it all and then something completely unusual happens. Our team motto is ‘there are no silly questions’.
“The team have a varied skill set and have had extensive training on understanding data protection legislation and can therefore guide people on what can and cannot be done. We are not as scary as you might think!”
The information governance team offer information and advice on a wide range of issues including:
- approved video conferencing guidance
- data protection impact assessments (DPIA)
- data protection issues
- date sharing agreements
- data processing agreements
- fairwarning incidents
- information asset register (IAR)
- information governance audits
- information governance breach reporting
- information governance training
- published guidance
- retention schedules
- securing personal information
- subject access requests (SAR)
Training is available to all administration, clinical and support services staff. This will be provided via MS Teams and a Q&A session will follow the presentation. To book a session, email DataProtectionEnquiries@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk
Michelle added: “New services and new ways of working are top of our agenda just now. There is lots of innovation among services, but we need to makes sure that these are compliant with the law.”
For further information, visit the information governance page on FirstPort at: http://firstport2/staff-support/information-governance-records-management/default.aspx
The team is available Monday to Thursday, 8am-5pm and Friday, 8am–4pm. The team can be contacted via the data protection enquiries mailbox (DataProtectionEnquiries@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk), individually via the global address book or by calling 01698 752992.
