This chapter examines the legal and ethical aspects of medical confidentiality. The discussion include the legal basis of confidentiality; defences to claims of breach of confidentiality; the Data Protection Act 1998; legal remedies in confidentiality cases; patient access to their own health information; and ethical arguments for and against confidentiality. Underpinning this chapter is the tension between requiring that a patient’s confidences are kept and the fact that sometimes there is an overwhelming reason why confidentiality needs to be breached. A further difficulty for this topic is that once confidentiality has been breached it can be very difficult to formulate an effective legal remedy.
Chapter
This chapter examines the legal and ethical aspects of medical confidentiality. The discussion includes the legal basis of confidentiality; defences to claims of breach of confidentiality; the Data Protection Act 1998; legal remedies in confidentiality cases; patient access to their own health information; and ethical arguments for and against confidentiality. Underpinning this chapter is the tension between requiring that a patient’s confidences are kept and the fact that sometimes there is an overwhelming reason why confidentiality needs to be breached. A further difficulty for this topic is that once confidentiality has been breached it can be very difficult to formulate an effective legal remedy.
