Letter on Record Access by Sir Graeme Catto (GMC-UK)
Sir Graeme Catto, President General Medical Council, UK
Records Access
The GMC’s statement of the values of the profession Duties of a Doctor and our core guidance Good Medical Practice emphasise the importance of doctors working in partnership with patients. To achieve this, doctors and patients need to communicate effectively with one another, and doctors must provide patients’ with information that they want or need to know in order to make decisions about their care. For example in Duties of a Doctor we say that doctors must:
Work in partnership with patients
- Listen to patients and respond to their concerns and preferences
- Give patients the information they want or need in a way they can understand
- Respect patients’ right to reach decisions with you about their treatment and care
- Support patients’ in caring for themselves to improve and maintain their health.
We welcome and support the use of new technology, including records access systems, which can make a significant contribution to the provision of information patients need in order to make decisions about their care.Of course, patient access to records, on request, has been a requirement under the Data Protection Acts since 1991. The current Act provides safeguards for patients themselves, and for the privacy of third parties. Clearly these legal obligations must be met, whatever means is used to give patients access to records.
Providing access to records outside the context of the Act does introduce some new questions, including the need to record information in a way patients can understand, how bad news, for example from test results, is communicated to patients, and how patients’ privacy can be maintained.
These are not new issues of principle, but practical matters that need to be addressed sensitively. They do not undermine the principles of openness and honesty with patients, or of the benefits of partnerships with patients, which records access systems will foster, and that the GMC supports.
Letter to Dr. Brian Fisher, 31 October 2007, publication authorised by Sir Graeme Catto.
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it’s a shame that these values are not enforced by the GMC
Dear Sir Graeme Catto,
The GMC sets out a very clear and professional statement of the values of the profession Duties of a Doctor , however, what most people do not realize is that they are only guidelines for doctors. In reality doctors do not take much notice of them for two main reasons;
1) If a patient complains about a doctor it is extremely difficult to prove the complaint and it is upto the patient to prove the doctor is guilty.
2) The values are not in themselves subject to the law of our country. So if you take the second value of giving patients the information…….You would think that means they need to tell you what conditions they are testing you for. In reality they could be testing you for a life threatening condition and you may never find out until you aply for insurance. All they need to tell you is they are doing some general blood tests to see if they find anything unusual. The only test they legally need to tell you specifically about is HIV.
The GMC guidelines work perfectly until something goes wrong then you realize they aren’t legally binding so don’t think it is your right that a doctor should follow them. In theory the GMC could take away a doctors licence to practice without the doctor having broken the law.
Orpheus.
This is rather interesting.
For many years, I have pointed out the blatant flaws in the manner in which the General Medical Council deals with data.
For all those who might like to read some interesting evidence, please visit http://nhsexposedblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/data-handling-and-general-medical.html
The GMC admitted to me that they had breached the data protection act. This was after they were caught red handed leaking information to all and sundry http://www.generalmedicalcouncil.com/2008/04/gmc-breaches-data-protection-act.html
Lastly, during the case Pal v GMC 2004 [ which was initially won by me then settled], the GMC used named patient data in the court related to my whistleblowing on Ward 87 [ http://www.ward87.blogspot.com. This was disclosed by the GMC’s lawyers to a public court without a thought as to whether they should be asking the consent of the patients concerned.
Life is full of pot calling kettle black at GMC towers. I should know. I have fought them since 2000 and I know more about them than the average member of the public.
Regards
Dr Rita Pal
http://www.nhsexposed.com
http://www.nhsexposedblog.blogspot.com
http://www.ward87.blogspot.com