Maurice,
Just a point in today's Glasgow Herald (5/7/01) on issuing without consent
and pertinent to your example is:
The BMA's guidance to GPs is that there is no absolute right to patient
confidentiality if this endangers the life of others. This was presented in
the context of patients receiving methadone treatment and driving in/out of
the surgery car park.
Alex Mitchell
North Lanarkshire Council
-----Original Message-----
From: Maurice Frankel [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 12:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Passing info on - without consent?
Paul,
I can see the sense of your point 2 in relation to the example being
discussed, but I'm not sure about it as a general point. It would
imply that if you ask for consent, you give the individual an
_absolute_ veto over disclosure, in all circumstances, even if
disclosure is in fact 'necessary' for one of the other schedule 2
purposes (and even in other respects the fairness requirement has
been met).
The implication of point 2 would be that, if you think disclosure may
be 'necessary', you should actively _avoid_ seeking consent. Is
there IC guidance on this?
To take an extreme, but plausible example, this would would mean
that if a psychiatrist asks a psychiatrically ill and potentially
dangerous patient for consent to pass information about his
condition to the GP and the patient refuses, the psychiatrist is
prohibited from passing the information on - even if this endangers
other people.
In that case the information would be sensitive data, requiring a
schedule 3 condition, one of which expressly permits disclosure
after a refusal of consent [para 3(b) of Schedule 3] suggesting that
a refusal is not intended to exclude disclosure where is it necessary
on other grounds.
A similar conclusion could be drawn from s 7(4), which envisages that
information about a third party who has not consented to disclosure
(and perhaps even refused it), may be revealed in a subject access
request if it is still "reasonable in all the circumstances".
Maurice Frankel
Campaign for Freedom of Information
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