Fiona Caldicott

A review was commissioned by the Chief Medical Officer of England and Wales owing to increasing concern about the ways in which patient information is used in the NHS of England and Wales and the need to ensure that confidentiality is not undermined.[11] Such concern was largely due to the development of information technology in the service, and its capacity to disseminate information about patients rapidly and extensively. In 1996, guidance on "the protection and use of patient information" was promulgated and there was a need to promote awareness of it at all levels in the NHS. It did not affect Scotland originally but they have recently adopted it. A main committee was set up under Caldicott's Chair and there were four separate working groups; the committee was known as the Caldicott Committee, responsible for reviewing all patient-identifiable information, which passes from NHS organisations to other NHS or non-NHS bodies for purposes other than direct care, medical research, or where there is a statutory requirement for information.

The committee was to consider each flow of patient-identifiable information and was to advise the NHS Executive whether patient identification was justified by the purpose and whether action to minimise risks of breach of confidentiality was desirable—for example, reduction, elimination, or separate storage of items of information. The report was published in December 1997.[12]

Every NHS trust has a "Caldicott Guardian" to ensure that standards of patient confidentiality and the Caldicott principles are upheld.

Caldicott became the UK's first National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care in November 2014.[13] In December 2018 the Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Act 2018 passed into law, and in April 2019 she was appointed the first statutory position holder[14] by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, a position she held until her death in February 2021.