GP/ Patient confidentiality query.

Has a General Practitioner a duty of total confidentiality to his patients or are some things OK to report?
I'd hazard a guess that murder confessions ( and similar ilk) would be OK, having a transmittable disease that the patient refused to have treated would also be OK.
Would pain killer/drug dependancy or alcohol abuse need to be reported?...and if so, to whom? Would it depend on what position the person had in society ie nurse, school teacher, publican etc?

It could then be argued that as a licencee and responsible for serving alcohol to others, if he wasn't a fit person to be in charge of supplying alcohol, then he should have his suitability to hold a liquor licence questioned.

He didn't realise that he'd experienced DTs until his GP diagnosed it - and thought he'd just had a weird experience ( hallucination and delusion symptoms). Was just he was concerned as his GP said he'd have to report it, and he doesn't want to lose his job.