Who Can Get Information About Someone's Care

If a hospital, hospice or care home has asked who they should list as able to receive information, or if you've assumed being a close family member automatically gives you a right to it, here's the actual legal picture in the UK, and it often surprises people.

"Next of kin" isn't a legal status

Despite how often it's used, and how official it sounds, the British Medical Association is direct about this: next of kin has no formal legal definition in the UK. A next of kin cannot give or withhold consent to share someone's information on their behalf, and has no automatic right to access their medical records. It's an administrative label, useful for knowing who to contact in an emergency, not a legal one that hands anyone rights or authority.

What actually governs who can get information

While your loved one has mental capacity, it comes down to their own consent. Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, health and care providers need the person's explicit permission to share their information with anyone, including close family. This is genuinely their choice to make, not something family membership grants automatically.

This is exactly what's happening when a hospice, hospital or care home asks who a patient or resident is happy to have information shared with, they're gathering real, informed consent directly from the person, and recording it. It's not a formality, it's the law working as intended.

If capacity is lost, and there's no Lasting Power of Attorney

Once someone can no longer make this decision for themselves, and there's no valid Health and Welfare LPA in place, decisions fall under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 "best interests" process. Professionals are required to consult people who know the person well, often including family, but being consulted is genuinely different from having formal legal authority. Nobody in the family automatically becomes the decision-maker just because they're closest, or because they were listed as "next of kin" somewhere along the way.

The thing that actually gives someone real authority

A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, set up while your loved one has capacity, is what genuinely changes this picture. It gives a named, chosen person clear legal authority to access health and care information and make decisions once capacity is lost, not an assumption based on being closest family, but an actual legal appointment your loved one made themselves. If this hasn't been set up yet, it's worth doing sooner rather than later, it can only be arranged while the person still has capacity to make that choice.

Without one, and without capacity, the only formal alternative is applying to the Court of Protection for a deputyship, a longer, more involved process than setting up an LPA in advance would have been.

What's actually worth doing

• Ask the hospital, hospice or care home directly, early, what their process is for recording who information can be shared with
• Have the conversation with your loved one while they can express a clear preference themselves, this is exactly the kind of thing worth covering in the wider family conversation about care wishes
• If you want lasting, genuine authority rather than relying on a provider's discretion, a Health and Welfare LPA is the actual legal tool for that

A word from The Care Compass

It's a genuinely common assumption, that being close family, or being written down somewhere as "next of kin," means something legally. It's completely understandable to feel caught out when it doesn't. The good news is the real legal tool for this, a Health and Welfare LPA, is something you can actually put in place, rather than something you have to hope a provider extends to you out of goodwill.

This article is for general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Rules can vary in specific circumstances, for anything decision-critical, professional legal advice is worth having.

You don’t have to navigate it alone.