We are consulting on revised guidance for all doctors on confidentiality.
Confidentiality is central to the trust between doctors and patients. Patients have a right to expect that information about their health will be kept in confidence by their doctors. But confidentiality is not absolute, and doctors need to strike a balance between protecting confidential patient information and sharing information appropriately.
Our current guidance Confidentiality was published in 2009. Over the past year, we have been reviewing it to make sure that it is clear, helpful, relevant to doctors’ needs and compatible with the law throughout the UK. We have also reviewed the seven explanatory statements that give more detailed advice on how to apply the principles in the confidentiality guidance to situations that doctors often encounter, or find hard to deal with.
Our guidance is intended mainly for doctors, but it may also help patients, the public and other health and social care staff to understand what they can expect from doctors.
Have your say on the explanatory statements
In this document, we are asking for feedback on the revised explanatory statements:
- section A: patients’ fitness to drive and reporting concerns to the DVLA or DVA
- section B: disclosing information for employment, insurance and similar purposes
- section C: disclosing records for financial and administrative purposes
- section D: disclosing information about serious communicable diseases
- section E: reporting gunshot and knife wounds
- section F: disclosing information for education, training and for learning from adverse incidents and near misses
- section G: responding to criticism in the press.
Each section sets out the revised guidance and the consultation questions relating to it. You do not have to comment on all of the guidance if you prefer to focus on specific issues.
