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Confidentiality Guidelines for Visitors

We aim to provide a safe and welcoming environment for people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. In order to do this we have to ensure that each person's confidentiality is safeguarded.

As a visitor we ask you to agree to maintain confidentiality with regard to our service users and the location of our premises.

At Positive Action, during fund-raising or other social events, you will meet other people; service users, volunteers, staff, guests and workers from other organisations. You will not necessarily know who is living with HIV/AIDS and who is not.

If someone divulges their HIV status to you, you are expected not to reveal that information to anyone else without their express permission to do so. Information about a person belongs to them and should not be shared or disclosed by others. Even if someone seems very open about their status it does not mean that they tell anyone else about it – and neither should you.

Please by careful if you meet people from Positive Action in your everyday life. If you approach people in other situations you may cause a breach of their confidentiality, for example if you're with a friend who then asks you how you know this person etc. We suggest that if you meet a member outside the building, you:

do not acknowledge them unless they acknowledge you first
take care not to mention how you know them, or perhaps say they are a friend of a friend
never share information with anyone outside the organisation, mention anyone by name or disclose details which could identify anyone

We are working to educate people in society who are still afraid that they can contract the virus through social contact and therefore many are still judgmental about those who have contracted the virus, so:

Please help us to maintain Positive Action as a safe place.