Information from Care Agency

[needaholidaz]

My parent had to pay for his own carers because of the amount of savings he has.

Do you know if people who work at GP surgeries can ring up the care agencies and ask them questions without the family's consent?

I've had someone who isn't a doctor ring up and ask things to update records rather than asking me. It's like I'm not trusted to give out the right information or the GP had told them to do that

It's hard to say without a bit more info.
If your parent has capacity did they give consent to the surgery to call the care agency?
If the call was about medication being dispensed by the carers that would be ok to check etc.
If it was a bit of a random update call I would find that a bit odd. How did they even know what agency to call?

My parent doesn't have capacity now and I organise the care for them.

There's someone at the surgery that works with the GPS and updates records. I told them that I would let them know when the care calls were increased but they went ahead to check with the agency as well as asking questions about things that should really be on the medical records anyway.

I find the GPs and the practice itself very odd anyway

Do you have Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare? If not, I believe they are right to speak to the care company directly.

If you have Power of Attorney, then there should be a signed agreement covering GDPR and information sharing, between you and the care agency. You would have signed it at the time the care started along with other contracts. This gives them permission to share information with relevant professionals such as GPs. All well run care agencies will have this in place as standard.

If you don't have POA then I believe the agency can share information on a best interests basis.

If you have POA but didn't sign permission for the agency to share information, then the care agency is in the wrong here and are in breach of GDPR (although they probably did it in good faith).

In any scenario, the GP Surgery haven't done anything whatsoever wrong in asking. The onus would be on the care agency to tell them that they don't have permission to share information and they need to contact you directly.