Medical Confidentiality Flashcards
What is confidentiality?
The state of keeping or being kept secret or private
What is the purpose of the Hippocratic oath
- Describes the basic ethics of medical practice
* Lays down a moral code of conduct for doctors
What are the 4 main domains under the GMC?
- Knowledge, skills and performance
- Safety and quality
- Communication, partnership and teamwork
- Maintaining trust
What does domain 4 maintaining trust include?
- Show respect for patients.
- Treat patients as individuals and respect their dignity.
- Treat patients politely and considerately.
- Respect patients’ right to confidentiality.
- Treat patients and colleagues fairly and without discrimination.
- Act with honesty and integrity.
- Never abuse your patients’ trust in you or the public’s trust in the profession.
Why is confidentiality important?
Trust is an essential part of doctor-patient relationship
Professional confidentiality is central to this
What might happen if a patient thought their information might be disclosed without consent?
Patient may avoid seeking medical help or under report symptoms
What is medical confidentiality based on?
Law of contract and equity
What does a breach of confidentiality consititute?
Breach of contract
What is the common law in terms of information acquired by a doctor?
Information acquired by doctors in their professional capacity will be confidential under common law
When are doctors allowed to disclose confidential information?
When there is a legal basis for doing so
In which situations can confidentiality be breached?
- With the patient’s consent
- With other medical practitioners in the patient’s interest
- Protection of other persons
- Child abuse
- In the public interest (terrorism, murder, culpable homicide, rape)
- In the doctors own defence
- Statutory requirements – prevention, detection and prosecution of serious crime
- When directed to by a court of law
How many principles are there in the General Data Protection Regulations?
Six principles
What do the six principles of the general data protection regulations state that data should be?
Data should be:
• 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
When dealing with personal data, what should you do?
- Use the minimum necessary personal information
- Manage and protect information
- Be aware of your responsibilities
- Comply with the law
- Share relevant information for direct care
- Ask for explicit consent
- Tell patients
- Support patients to access their information
