Confidentiality Explained

Confidentiality means that when you go to see a health professional for any health issue, including sexual health they will not share the information you give them with anyone else, if they think you are 'competant' to consent to the treatment.  (Competant to consent means that you are fully capable of understanding the treatment, and any possible consequences).

Professionals seeing young people for sexual health information, advice or treatment may ask you if you wish to inform a parent, carer or other trusted adult.  However, if you do not wish to inform a adult, they will respect your wishes and still offer you treatment.

A Doctor, nurse or other health professional may break confidentiality if they think that you or someone else is at significant risk of harm.  However they will not break confidentiality without informing you first.

This means that if you go to see a health or other professional for sexual health information and advice, contraception, screening for sexually transmitted infections (STI's), or information and referral for abortion they will see you, even if you are under 16, without having to inform your parents or carers.

Some GP surgeries, however, may not see young people confidentialy for sexual health treatment.  If you are concerned about whether you will receive a confidential service from your GP or any other service you can telephone them before attending and ask (without giving your name !) if they see young people confidentially for sexual health treatment (or a supporting professional such as a youth worker, connexions advisor could phone for you).

All the services that have the KYPF Kitemark have to have a clear Confidentiality Policy, and should all display a confidentiality statement such as this:

“Here To Listen Not to Tell.”

We provide a confidential service to all young people attending this service, including under 16’s. This means that you can tell others about this visit, but we won’t.

The only reason why we might have to consider passing on confidential information would be to protect you or someone else from very serious harm, however we will always try to discuss this with you first.

What if I've attended a Service that wasn't confidential ?

If you have attended any health service, including a sexual health service and are worried that your information may been shared, or you were not seen at a service because you were under 16 and wishing to attend without an adult, you have the right to complain. 

You can complain directly to the service itself, or if the service is part of the NHS (such as a GP, a CASH clinic, a Walk-In Centre), you can contact the Patient Advice & Liasion Service (PALS) for that area who will support you to either make an annonymous comment, or support and advise you to make a formal complaint about that service. 

If you do not wish to contact the PALS service you can contact us to let us know what happened, and although we cannot take a complain forward on your behalf, we could arrange to see the professionals running that service and annonymously feed back your concerns.