Confidentiality: good practice in handling patient information (2017)

• Online: Confidentiality: good practice in handling patient information
• Download: Confidentiality: good practice in handling patient information (pdf)
• Other formats: see information on guidance in other languages and formats.

Explanatory guidance

The explanatory guidance below explains how the principles in the core guidance apply in a range of situations doctors often encounter or find hard to deal with.

• Disclosing information for education and training
• Disclosing information for employment, insurance and similar purposes
• Disclosing information about serious communicable diseases
• Patients' fitness to drive and reporting concerns to the DVLA or DVA
• Reporting gunshot and knife wounds
• Responding to criticism in the media

• When can I disclose information?
• When can I rely on implied consent?
• What if the patient lacks capacity?
• What if an adult is at risk of serious harm?
• What are disclosures in the public interest?
• When might a patient pose a risk of serious harm to others?
• What if the disclosure is required by law?
• What about children and young people?
• What if an adult patient may be at risk of suicide?
• What can I tell those close to the patient?           

• Flowchart (pdf)

Below you will find some learning materials to support the confidentiality guidance. 

• Case studies
• Short scenarios

We also have relevant case studies in Good medical practice in action (GMPiA) the GMC’s interactive case studies resource.

• Dr MacDonald
• Adrian and Dr Peters 
• The police and Dr Peters
• Marlena and Dr Gallagher
• Mr Jessop and Dr Williams
• Dr Peters and Sylvia

• Key legislation factsheet
• Key legislation factsheet (pdf)
• Daflen ffeithiau deddfwriaeth allweddol (pdf)

Developed with doctors and patients

We’re grateful to the hundreds of doctors, patients, individuals and organisations from across the UK who contributed to our engagement activities. Their input was vital and helped to shape the revised guidance.

Read about the challenges doctors face in practice and how our guidance can help them overcome them: Balancing confidentiality guidance for you and your patients by Professor Jonathan Montgomery.

Read how we listened and reacted to feedback in developing the guidance (pdf).

We engaged extensively with groups with ‘protected characteristics’ as part of our consultation process. Our Equality Analysis (pdf) documents the steps we’ve taken to comply with the public sector equality duty (Equality Act 2010).

The revised guidance is structured for easy use in practice. We’ve expanded, updated, and re-organised it to reflect the way doctors use information, focussing on:

• Disclosures to support the direct care of an individual patient
• Disclosures for the protection of patients and others
• Disclosures for all other purposes

Read our ‘What’s Changed’ briefing (pdf).