Confidentiality

Question 1

What is the definition of medical confidentiality?

Answer 1

Health care providers are required to keep a patient’s personal health information private unless consent to release the information is provided by the patient.

Question 2

What are the circumstances in which medical confidentiality can be breached and their consequences?

Answer 2

With the patient’s consent
With other medical practitioners in the patient’s interest
In the doctors own defence
When directed to by a court of law
Statutory requirements – prevention, detection and prosecution of serious crime
Protection of other persons
In the public interest (terrorism, murder, culpable homicide, rape)
Child abuse

Question 3

How does the common law state information should be used?

Answer 3

This duty is derived from a series of court judgments, which have established the principle that information given or obtained in confidence should not be used or disclosed further except in certain circumstances. This means a doctor must not disclose confidential information, unless there is a legal basis for doing so

Question 4

What do the data protection principles state?

Answer 4

Personal data must:
Be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner
Be processed for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not in any manner incompatible with those purposes
Be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes
Be accurate and up to date
Must not be kept for longer than is necessary
Be secure