To Tell or Not to Tell

Abstract

Confidentiality is very much a topic of the 1980s. We have already examined patients’ rights and the rights of health care staff. Rapid developments in information technology have made the public aware that detailed information may be held about them. The Data Protection Act has seen to that, although in fact that act only gives us some safeguards when data are held in computerised form. It is hoped that the spirit of the act will spill over into other kinds of record keeping, but clearly alternative kinds of records will be potentially the most interesting if they are the ones to which the individual has no right of access.