Confidentiality: About this guidance

1. 1. Good Medical Practice (2006) makes clear that patients have a right to expect that information about them will be held in confidence by their doctors. This guidance sets out the principles of confidentiality and respect for patients’ privacy that you are expected to understand and follow.
2. 2. You must use your judgement to apply the principles in this guidance to the situations you face as a doctor, whether or not you hold a licence to practise and whether or not you routinely see patients. You must be prepared to explain and justify your decisions and actions. 
3. 3. The purpose of this guidance is to help you identify the relevant legal and ethical considerations, and to help you make decisions that respect patients’ privacy, autonomy and choices and that also benefit the wider community of patients and the public. If in doubt, you should seek the advice of experienced colleagues, a Caldicott Guardian¹ or equivalent, or your professional or regulatory body.
4. 4. Supplementary guidance is available on our website explaining how these principles apply in situations doctors often encounter or find hard to deal with. We propose to review that supplementary guidance regularly to keep it up to date and relevant to the problems doctors face. At the time of publishing this core guidance, we are also publishing supplementary guidance on:
   
   
   1. (a) reporting concerns about patients to the DVLA or the DVA (pdf)
   2. (b) disclosing records for financial and administrative purposes (pdf)
   3. (c) reporting gunshot and knife wounds (pdf)
   4. (d) disclosing information about serious communicable diseases (pdf)
   5. (e) disclosing information for insurance, employment and similar purposes (pdf)
   6. (f) disclosing information for education and training purposes (pdf)
   7. (g) responding to criticism in the press (pdf).

1. 5. Serious or persistent failure to follow this guidance will put your registration at risk.