Patient Confidentiality

HC Deb 08 February 2002 vol 379 c1233W

Mr. Gibb

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the NHS guidelines and rules regarding patient confidentiality. [31221]

Ms Blears

Guidance on patient confidentiality was issued to the national health service in March 1996 entitled `The Protection and Use of Patient Information'. This has been supplemented by guidance to NHS staff responsible for advising their organisations on patient confidentiality—Caldicott Guardians—in the form of a manual entitled `Protecting and Using Patient Information: A manual for Caldicott Guardians' issued in March 1999. A strategic framework for improving confidentiality as part of wider work to modernise the NHS was published in December 2001 entitled 'Protecting and Using Patient Information: A strategy for the NHS'.