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Formal Consultation launched

Take part in the consultation which closes on 28 November 2008.

There are two ways that you can take part in the consultation. You can either complete:

• The full written consultation which is based on the draft core and supplementary guidance; or
  
  
• The short consultation which you can complete this whether or not you have read the guidance. We hope that this will appeal to individual doctors, patients and members of the public.

Why are we consulting you on this guidance?

The aim of the consultation is to seek views on the revised draft guidance which was informed by responses to an initial consultation. The formal consultation is a key part of the guidance development process as it allows us to find out what our key interest groups, including individual doctors, patients and members of the public think of the revised guidance.

What are we consulting on?

We are consulting on the revised core guidance, Confidentiality: a draft for consultation and seven pieces of draft supplementary guidance which explain how the principles in the main guidance apply in a variety of situations that doctors ask us about or find difficult:

• Reporting concerns about patients to the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Agency (DVLA)
  
  
• Disclosing records for financial and administrative purposes
  
  
• Reporting gunshot and knife wounds
  
  
• Disclosing information about serious communicable diseases
  
  
• Disclosing information for insurance, employment and similar purposes
  
  
• Disclosing information for educational and training purposes
  
  
• Responding to criticism in the press.

We have launched a new online consultation facility that will enable you to keep up to date with and respond to all GMC consultations on one site. You can access the consultation here (opens in a new window). You will need to register on the new site to respond online. Once you have registered on our new site, you will be able to use the same login details to respond to future GMC consultation.

In addition to our key interest groups (representatives from the profession, employers, and patient and public groups), we would like to hear from:

• Individual doctors who are our primary audience for the guidance and who will need to be familiar with and follow the finalised guidance.
  
  
• Individual patients and members of the public, who might not normally respond to written consultations, but have an interest in confidentiality issues, for example patients with serious communicable diseases or those who have been the victims of serious crime.