Confidentiality

Many organisations see the value of sharing information and learning the lesson, but if this is likely to bring them adverse publicity or increased scrutiny by the regulators, then they might be very cautious about contributing to the database. Therefore it was clear from the beginning that the confidentiality of information would be a major issue.

To address this problem, all information contained in the database is unattributable and confidential. Only the originator of the incident entry will know the names of the organisations or individuals concerned and all data are presented to NRPB in a format that provides anonymity. There will be some instances where, because of the affiliation of the contributor, NRPB may be aware of the organisation involved (but not the names of the persons). For its part, NRPB undertakes not to divulge any such privileged information to a third party. HSE and the EA are well aware of the natural wariness that potential contributors may have in respect of the involvement of regulatory bodies. Therefore they have given assurances that they will not seek to obtain further information from the other partners (or the contributing organisation if different) about any incident recorded on the database that was not reported to the regulators. This would not prevent HSE and the EA following up incidents that are notified to them by other means, e.g. through statutory reporting requirements or complaints from employees or members of the public.