Patient Confidentiality Case Study
CONFIDENTIALITY
Professional especially doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect confidentiality of patients. I am going to give details of a case study I came across and then outline the issues surrounding confidentiality referring to it.
The case study is about a man (Mr X) who is in a relationship with a drug representative. He discovers that one of the drugs he is researching is produced by another subsidiary of his girlfriend’s drug company. As part of the research, he has access to 1325 patient records. His girlfriend asks if she would look at some of the patient's records to see what type of drugs they have been prescribed for her work. She says it will not cause any harm as she can be able to see them on the NHS public documents …show more content…
The guidance states ‘that a minimise disclosure of information and if need be then the information need to be made anonymous’ (GMC, 2009). It also states that doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect patient confidentiality. Moreover, a patient should be aware that personal information will be shared within the healthcare team unless they object. Anyone which whom personal information is disclosed in confidence must respect that confidence (GMC, 2004). The information shared within teams is permissible but should be respected. Some of the relevant paragraphs includes that of where patients have consent to treatment, expressed consent is not usually required before sharing information and that the patient should be made aware of the sharing of information in a team unless they object (GMC, 2004). These should be considered before Mr X allow their girlfriend to access the …show more content…
The Act covers both computer and manual records. The act has eight principles with a general mention of that data should be processed fairly, securely, and for a limited purpose. More so, it states that a patient has the right to view their records but must pay a fee to do so. However, the holders are not obliged to release the records to third parties or information that may harm the patient (Baxter et, al, 2005). When considering the case study, access to medical records for research purpose are in theory, but there is a lot uncertainty about the nature of how it is covered. The GMC once warned that putting a patient on the cancer registry might constitute a breach of the Act. However, it seems that appropriate privacy, the use of personal records for research and audit is permissible (Baxter et, al,
Professional especially doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect confidentiality of patients. I am going to give details of a case study I came across and then outline the issues surrounding confidentiality referring to it.
The case study is about a man (Mr X) who is in a relationship with a drug representative. He discovers that one of the drugs he is researching is produced by another subsidiary of his girlfriend’s drug company. As part of the research, he has access to 1325 patient records. His girlfriend asks if she would look at some of the patient's records to see what type of drugs they have been prescribed for her work. She says it will not cause any harm as she can be able to see them on the NHS public documents …show more content…
The guidance states ‘that a minimise disclosure of information and if need be then the information need to be made anonymous’ (GMC, 2009). It also states that doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect patient confidentiality. Moreover, a patient should be aware that personal information will be shared within the healthcare team unless they object. Anyone which whom personal information is disclosed in confidence must respect that confidence (GMC, 2004). The information shared within teams is permissible but should be respected. Some of the relevant paragraphs includes that of where patients have consent to treatment, expressed consent is not usually required before sharing information and that the patient should be made aware of the sharing of information in a team unless they object (GMC, 2004). These should be considered before Mr X allow their girlfriend to access the …show more content…
The Act covers both computer and manual records. The act has eight principles with a general mention of that data should be processed fairly, securely, and for a limited purpose. More so, it states that a patient has the right to view their records but must pay a fee to do so. However, the holders are not obliged to release the records to third parties or information that may harm the patient (Baxter et, al, 2005). When considering the case study, access to medical records for research purpose are in theory, but there is a lot uncertainty about the nature of how it is covered. The GMC once warned that putting a patient on the cancer registry might constitute a breach of the Act. However, it seems that appropriate privacy, the use of personal records for research and audit is permissible (Baxter et, al,