Conversations, photos and social media

Most breaches in care do not involve computers at all. They involve mouths, cameras and social media accounts.

Conversations

Never discuss patients or people we support where you can be overheard: lifts, corridors, smoking areas, buses, the pub after work. You cannot control who is listening, and in a local community someone often knows the person you are talking about, even without a name. Talking through a hard shift is healthy, but do it in supervision or a private staff space, and keep identifying detail out of casual conversation entirely.

Photos and consent

Photos of people we support are personal data, and often special category data, because they show someone receiving care. Before taking any photo, there must be consent, or a best-interests decision for someone who lacks capacity, and a clear purpose: wound monitoring, a care plan, an activity display, a newsletter. Consent for one purpose does not cover another. A photo taken for wound care must never surface on a Facebook page.

Use the organisation's devices and approved systems for photos, never your personal phone. A resident's photo in your personal camera roll, syncing to your personal cloud account, is a breach waiting to happen even if you never share it.

Social media

The rule is simple: post nothing identifiable about the people you support, ever, on any account, however private you believe it is.

• No names, faces, initials, room numbers or nicknames.
• No stories that could identify someone by detail, even without a name. In a small town, "the gentleman on my unit who used to be a headteacher" is identifiable.
• No photos taken at work in which a person we support, their belongings, or a screen or document appears, even in the background of a staff selfie.
• Do not accept friend requests from people we support or their families on personal accounts, and never discuss work matters in comments or direct messages.

Screenshots outlive privacy settings, and posts have ended careers and reached grieving families. If in doubt, do not post.