Microsoft Teams has taken over from Skype for Business as the Trust's main video conferencing platform, essentially it is a hub which enables staff to send instant messages, make internal calls, share, edit and collaborate on files and documents in one central, secure location.
Staff must ensure that Teams is used securely and in line with good information governance (IG) and records management practice. Please refer to the Information Governance, Confidentiality and Data Sharing and Health Records policies for further information.
Teams is not a clinical or workforce system. The disclosure and storage of personal and confidential information should be kept to a minimum and appropriate security measures applied.
IG guidance around the appropriate use of Teams can be found in the sections below.
MS Teams: IG Guidance - Genaralised staff guidance around the use of Teams.
Team / Channel Membership
- A key benefit of Teams is the ability to collaborate with your colleagues, across the Trust and wider external community. Take care when setting up Team and Channel membership, especially when individuals external to the Trust are included. Regularly review membership and take account of movers and leavers.
- Where possible, Teams and Channels must be set to private to ensure information sharing between individuals is on a strict 'need to know' basis. Please see the Confidentiality and Data Sharing Policy for further guidance on information sharing.
- Within a ‘Team’, dedicated channels can be created for specific topics, departments or projects, where meetings, chats, and files can be shared. The Team owner can restrict membership to each channel e.g. if the channel contains information which should not be shared with the wider ‘Team’ membership.
- If person confidential data (PCD) is to be shared on a channel then access to the channel must be secured and restricted to only relevant staff. This may include staff external to the Trust where necessary.
- In line with Data Protection legislation and Caldicott Principles, the use of person confidential data (PCD) on Teams and channels must be kept to the minimum necessary for the purpose in question.
MS Teams: Recording Meetings - Guidance for recording meetings on Teams, including details around sharing, storage, retention and deletion.
NB. The recording function within Teams is switched off by default. A request to access this function can be submitted to the Informatics Merseyside IT Service Desk. Staff must have a legitimate buisness need along with line manager approval in order for the request to be approved
MS Teams: Sending Invites to Groups - Guidance for managing group meeting invites to avoid the inappropriate sharing of personal email addresses.
NHS Informatics Merseyside's Training Service delivers virtual training on a range of digital tools including clinical systems and applications such as Microsoft Teams.
To support the use of Microsoft Teams, a number of tailored virtual training sessions have been developed by the Training Service to help users get the most from the features available. Click here for further information.
User guides and video tutorials for Microsoft Teams are also available within Informatics Merseyside's digital learning resources.