Our first post from a guest blogger comes from healthskills. She has recently left a post on her blog re issues of rights to privacy and consent to disclose and has requested a wider debate across the world. I have cited a small part of her post (linked here) to catch your thoughts. Some comments on her post already offer how we may approach this in the UK with reference to Caldicott and Data Protection etc.
"Along with the right to privacy is the responsibility to adequately disclose information. Sometimes people are completely unaware of the need to tell us something, sometimes they choose not to tell us something, sometimes they deliberately mislead us. Just as it’s important to know about someone’s cardiac status before we begin reactivation, we also need to know about a history of self harm or delusional behaviour or serious depression.
Who is being protected by selective disclosure of health information? Is it really in the patient’s best interests? Is it in the best interests of the community? Is it in the best interests of the health care provider? And again, why is mental health information dealt with differently from other health care information?"
Healthskills would be keen to know what yout think, how your practice may be aided or frustrated by these and similar issues. You can add you comment here or link directly to her post and offer comment directly. Any thoughts?
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