Confidentiality: good practice in handling patient information

This guidance sets out eight principles of confidentiality that you should apply to your practice. It provides a framework to help you decide when you can share information. And helps you to think about why you are sharing the information.

The guidance includes a section on managing and protecting information. This has helpful advice on the personal responsibilities of doctors, physician associates and anaesthesia associates for protecting patient information. It also gives advice on when you can share information after a patient has died.

This guidance came into effect 25 April 2017. It was updated on 25 May 2018 to reflect the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 and on 13 December 2024 when regulation of physician associates and anaesthesia associates by the GMC came into effect.

We also have six pieces of shorter guidance which explain how to apply the principles of Confidentiality to situations we know can be difficult in practice. These are:

• Confidentiality: disclosing information for education and training purposes
• Confidentiality: disclosing information for employment, insurance and similar purposes
• Confidentiality: disclosing information about serious communicable diseases
• Confidentiality: patients’ fitness to drive and reporting concerns to the DVLA or DVA
• Confidentiality: reporting gunshot and knife wounds
• Confidentiality: responding to criticism in the media