Vulnerable client at work

[PeppyAquaFinch]

Hi

My business has a client who sadly due to dementia (we think!) has gradually become very vulnerable - forgetful, wandering the streets, offering their bank cards to strangers, recently the gas went off in their house and they were freezing for days and couldn’t sort it, saying they’re not eating properly, and it is obvious their hygiene / self-care is NIL. There is no next of kin.

We have phoned Age UK for advice and they recommend we speak to local social services.

But we have checked this with our professional body (highly regulated industry) and we are prohibited by GDPR from passing on their name and address.

What do we do?!

So far we have lent them an electric heater so they could keep warm, phoned the Gas Board to get their heating on etc but they are increasingly in need of far more support than we can and should offer.

Adult social services, everyone has a duty to safeguard.

So your professional body is concerned about GDPR but not concerned about the safeguarding of a vulnerable client? Sod that - I’d be ringing social services asap!

Google your local authority's adult safeguarding team, everyone has a duty to report a concern

You use your common sense and contact social services.

Just for clarity - not reporting is not an option.

I will report tomorrow unless anyone has any better routes i.e. reporting in some way that doesn’t open me and my business up to a GDPR breach. that’s what I’m asking - am I missing anything?

You can report to safeguarding anonymously via your local social services website, however there is no guarantee anything will be a) done and b) quickly.
As you seem to know quite a bit about this person, you could also contact their GP

Surely you'd have a duty of care to flag safeguarding which would override gdpr

Safeguarding trumps gdpr, your professional body is wrong

If you are satisfied that your concern is justifiable and that you could use name and address to report a concern to the local authority, it will be excused from the GDPR under reasonable data sharing for safeguarding purposes

Your professional body are incorrect. I suspect if you asked them again, but a different person, they'd tell you the correct answer! Safeguarding absolutely overrules GDPR every time.

https://www.scie.org.uk/safeguarding/adults/practice/sharing-information/

I hope they listened to your concerns OP.