A rock and a hard place? Ministry of Defence | Defence News | MOD confirms loss of recruitment data

[Ian Batten]

On 28 Jan 08, at 2301, James Cox wrote:
>
> The medical code of confidentiality is extremely simple. Disclosure  
> of patient data is illegal, period.

As Roland points out, it's hard to see how insurance-based systems  
(not just the US, but France and Germany) can operate in that  
context.  Or how clinical audit can operate.  Or epidemiologists.  Or  
any sort of public health work.  Now `we' on this mailing list will  
say that the anonymization of medical data isn't adequate, and the  
confidentiality of identifiable data certainly isn't either, but  
we're not saying that patient data can't be disclosed.  Because too  
many children died in Bristol for that argument to work.

> Except, of course, when you're dealing with a minor...

Really?  Mrs Gillick will be pleased to hear that minors don't have a  
right of confidentiality.

It's all too complex to sit in ``extremely simple'' statements.   
There's a lot of gr[ae]y.

ian