Sharing personal information in a mental health emergency

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has recently released crucial guidance for employers concerning the sharing of their workers' personal information during mental health emergencies.

This guidance offers invaluable advice on when and how to appropriately share such information if there is a belief that an individual's mental health poses a risk of serious harm to themselves or others.

Outlined in the guidance is the importance of proactive planning to facilitate timely and well-informed decisions during such emergencies. It delves into the definition of a mental health emergency, nuances of mental health information under data protection laws, strategies for effective information sharing planning, as well as the applicable lawful bases and special category conditions. You can read the guidance here.

These are of course all matters that employers should ideally already be addressing as part of their mental health strategy and in the creation of their own mental health policies.

Planning for such situations in advance rather than having to react to them unprepared can only be a positive use of resources in this current era where workplace mental health issues are unfortunately an ever-increasing challenge for HR and managers to have to deal with.

With our help at OMhAS you can be better prepared to handle these emergencies and so ensure that their impact is much less significant on your business too.

Joanna Atkinson, Director

OMhAS Ltd

If you would like to discuss how you can be better at looking after your employees’ mental health and ensure that your managers are properly trained to help you do so on a day-to-day basis, please do contact us at: help@OMhAS.co.uk