On February 16 2009 we launched the new http://www.capitalambition.gov.uk website. This London Connects site will remain up for a while, but will no longer be updated or active. All the important information about current projects and upcoming events will be moved over.  Please head to  http://www.capitalambition.gov.uk now to see our new site.

Information Sharing

London Connects is keen to promote best practice in information sharing between local government, health, police and other agencies. Indeed, our goal is to provide a central point of information governance and shared solutions for London Boroughs - as agreed recently by the Chief Executives' London Committee.

However, we are aware that this is a difficult area. The ICO have published their own very useful framework guidance on info sharing in general, yet we are still short of a definitive answer to questions like "do I need parties to sign a protocol or agree to guidelines?" or "what do I use for social care as opposed to crime and disorder?" In particular, people tend to ask us "is there a pan-London protocol?"

We are working on a briefing paper that covers all these questions but in the meantime Sukhvinder Kaur at London Fire has been working with a sub-group of the London Information Rights Forum to develop a simple template agreement for specific information sharing flows (e.g. asking for legal basis). This is currently being piloted in practical use and will be available here shortly.

If you are looking to share social care and patient identifiable data, there is already a funded proposal for a pan-London information sharing protocol based on the North East London ISP (attached below).

This is supported poltically or financially by London Councils, Government Office for London, Connecting for Health, London Challenge, Association of London Directors of Children's Services, London Ambulance Service and the Metropolitan Police. A new coordinator and support officer are currently being recruited and they are likely to be based at Tower Hamlets. The project rollout document is also attached below - so far K&C and Westminster Care Community have already joined and many are looking into it.

We would encourage you to join the online community for the NE protocol at http://www.espace.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/

Related documents:

London ISP - PID

NE London ISP v11