News
How information sharing is improving help for troubled families
- 25 March 2018
- Posted by: Helen Nicol
- Category: News

Information sharing has been at the heart of the troubled families programme since it first began. Not only does information sharing allow the most complex and costly families to be identified, information sharing also means problems can be tackled more effectively.
With the support of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, and Public Health England, the troubled families’ health information sharing project was established to provide case studies to help those who are trying to share health information better.
One case study looks at the approach within Staffordshire, and the other from Oldham. A summary report has also been produced which is an overview from both case studies. This identifies eight common barriers to sharing – if any of these sound familiar, click on the link below to read approaches to overcoming them.
1) Varying levels of information sharing maturity;
2) Concerns about security, confidentiality and interpretation of data;
3) Concerns about legal gateways for sharing health data to support troubled families;
4) Different approaches to consent;
5) Addressing a lack of trust and shared vision;
6) Poor engagement due to lack of explicit joint benefits;
7) Partners can have complex systems; and
8) Not everyone is used to ‘thinking family’
Download the case studies and the summary report and read how these barriers were addressed.