Surveillance in care homes - expert guidance

The Care Quality Commission guidance “Using Surveillance” was updated in June 2015 and includes a reminder that the legal framework requires that the use of surveillance in care services must be lawful, fair and proportionate.  Concerns over the standard of care by care home owners, residents and their families, may lead some to choose to use overt or covert surveillance to monitor care and maintain standards.

If you are using or considering using CCTV systems for surveillance you need to think about the following:

• Most use of CCTV will be covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), so individuals will have subject access rights to see information held about them, which includes CCTV images or images that give away information about them (such as a car number plate).
• The DPA provides rules which CCTV operators must follow when gathering, storing and releasing CCTV images of individuals.
• Operators must let people know that they are using CCTV – although covert surveillance may be possible in some circumstances.  Notification is usually by signage, which must be clearly visible and readable, and identify who is operating the system.
• Care homes should have a privacy policy that deals with the capture and processing of data, and this should be updated to cover CCTV footage.  In particular, operators need to consider how long such footage should be kept for bearing in mind the requirement of the DPA that data should not be kept for longer than required to fulfil its purpose. 
• Consent – any use of surveillance must meet relevant conditions for processing personal data (and in some cases sensitive personal data) under the DPA. Explicit consent will be required if sensitive personal data is to be captured. Staff may also consider this an intrusion, and employees and workers will need to be aware of the use of surveillance. Where consent is required, it must be freely given and any refusal or withdrawal must be respected, so you will need procedures in place to accurately record the current status of any consent.
• Access – it would be appropriate to limit access to recorded information only to those that are responsible for its use, and to ensure they are aware of the need to keep it secure and not disclose it other than in accordance with the organisation’s policy.
• Before implementing surveillance consider consulting with staff, residents, families and other visitors to address any concerns.

Both the CQC and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) produce useful guidance on using surveillance, in particular see:

• CQC – Using Surveillance
• ICO -  The Employment Practices Code
• A data protection code of practice for surveillance cameras and personal information (Appendix 2 is a useful checklist of users of limited CCTV systems)