# Vulnerable Persons Register and Emergency Disclosure

## Overview

A person with dementia who may wander, a medically complex resident who cannot communicate clearly in a crisis, or a household where specific welfare information matters to responders should not depend on a dispatcher discovering that context from scratch during every incident. At the same time, that information cannot be exposed too broadly or without clear consent boundaries.

The Vulnerable Persons Register and Emergency Disclosure module gives agencies a structured way to let citizens pre-register relevant information, control which categories may be shared, and release that information to the right responder types only when the incident context justifies it. The result is faster, safer decision-making without turning a sensitive register into a general-purpose lookup database.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Citizen Registration] --> B[Consent Categories Set]
    B --> C[Verified Register Entry]
    C --> D[Incident Near Registered Address]
    D --> E[Responder Lookup]
    E --> F[Category-Based Disclosure Check]
    F --> G[Emergency Context Shared]
    G --> H[Audit and Review]
```

**Last Reviewed:** 2026-04-17
**Last Updated:** 2026-04-17

## Key Features

- **Citizen Registration**: Let citizens or authorised carers register key vulnerability information against a person and address.
- **Category-Based Consent**: Manage consent at the level of specific information categories rather than forcing all-or-nothing disclosure.
- **Responder-Type Filtering**: Allow different categories to be visible to ambulance, GP, welfare, or fire responders based on the citizen's permissions.
- **Geofenced Lookup**: Limit responder discovery to registrations close to the incident location instead of permitting unrestricted searching.
- **Emergency Disclosure Workflow**: Release the permitted information against a live incident or encounter with the incident context attached.
- **Verification and Withdrawal**: Support verification, renewal, and withdrawal so the register stays current and defensible.
- **Audit Trail**: Record when a disclosure happened, who accessed it, and under what justification.
- **Tenant Isolation**: Keep the register organisation-scoped so one service cannot search another service's citizens by mistake.

## Use Cases

- **Welfare Check Response**: A responder attending a vulnerable adult's address sees relevant care-planning information that was pre-consented for welfare incidents.
- **Ambulance Attendance**: A crew attending a known medically complex patient receives emergency-context details that help with assessment and communication.
- **Missing or Wandering Person Support**: A dispatch team handling a vulnerable-person search can retrieve verified information tied to the registered address and person.
- **Fire and Rescue Entry Support**: A fire crew attending an urgent welfare entry sees critical household or occupant context that was authorised for that responder type.
- **Citizen-Controlled Safety Planning**: A carer updates the categories that can be shared without needing a bespoke paper process.

## Integration

- **Citizen Authentication and Portal Access**: Citizens can authenticate through the public identity layer to create and manage their own records.
- **PSAP NG911 / NG112 Additional Data Retrieval**: Registered context can be surfaced into emergency call handling where the deployment supports it.
- **ePCR and Clinical Workflows**: Emergency disclosures can be linked to the resulting encounter so responders and auditors understand what was shared.
- **Operational Mapping and Geospatial Services**: Incident-to-address proximity checks can align with the platform's standard location services.
- **Audit and Governance Services**: Every disclosure event can feed the wider immutable audit and compliance layer.

## Open Standards

- **HL7 FHIR Consent**: consent preferences can align with a healthcare-standard model for what information may be shared and under what basis.
- **HL7 FHIR Flag**: responder-facing warning or awareness markers can align with a standard patient-safety alert pattern.
- **WGS 84 / EPSG:4326**: address and incident proximity checks use the standard latitude-longitude reference model used across mapping workflows.
- **OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0**: citizen sign-in and delegated access can align with standard identity and consent-aware portal patterns.
- **W3C PROV-DM**: emergency disclosure events can be represented as a provenance chain for oversight and review.
- **ISO 8601**: registration, verification, and disclosure timestamps use a standard date-time format.