Confidentiality guidance: Disclosures to protect the patient

1. 51. It may be appropriate to encourage patients to consent to disclosures you consider necessary for their protection, and to warn them of the risks of refusing to consent; but you should usually abide by a competent adult patient’s refusal to consent to disclosure, even if their decision leaves them, but nobody else, at risk of serious harm.²² You should do your best to provide patients with the information and support they need to make decisions in their own interests, for example, by arranging contact with agencies to support victims of domestic violence.

2. 52. Disclosure without consent may be justified if it is not practicable to seek a patient’s consent. See paragraph 38 for examples, and paragraph 63 for guidance on disclosures to protect a patient who lacks capacity to consent.