Patient Confidentiality

[ooid]

Hello everyone,

I have a question related to medical law. A close family member recently had a very nasty experience with a private doctor in London. She left a negative review on her website (google), nothing insulting just very genuine and politely written negative review.

The doctor has sent back a few emails (one of them is quite rude), and also the doctor responded to my relative's negative review by disclosing my relative's name surname and her medical condition (which is quite private actually)

Is this doctor breaching her patient confidentiality ? The issue has already been sent to GMC by the way, and they are working on it in terms of the doctors attitude and response.

Thanks!

[ooid]

meehaja said:

Hi, I work in data protection for a hospital.

In the first instance, this is a data breach, it’s also a professional standards issue. The doctor will be (or should be) registered with the ICO, who you can lodge a complaint/ concern with.

They have contacted ICO already, This is ICO's response, basically just write to doctor's with their template letter regarding to the concern;

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Raise your concern with the organisation handling your information.

From 25 May 2018, organisations have one calendar month to respond to a request. If the request is complex or extremely time consuming they may be able to take longer. They must, however explain this when they respond.

For any concerns that date back before 25 May 2018, organisations have up to 40 days to respond to a request.

For further advice you can contact us via our live chat service or call our helpline on 0303 123 1113.

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[ooid]

oddman said:

The GMC may be interested in 'attitude and response' but if you have evidence of breach of confidentiality (not my area of expertise but would screenshots suffice?) that is a very serious issue and could result in erasure.

Yes, on a publicly viewing google page really. Her medical condition and name, surname everything being written by the practice as a response to their negative review. It's pretty serious.

[ooid]

Rollin said:

Why did you not complain to the doctor first of all, rather than do an anonymous slagging off on a review site?

I've asked this too first instance. My relative, was not able to reach the doctor fist, The doctor ignored and her P.A. responded instead.

[ooid]

Update:

The practie in question, removed the sensitive information and names. However, they have sent an email requesting my relatives to remove their negative comment/review on google. They claim this is defamation & libel grounds to their business.

I'm speechless really, good thing wait for hours at NHS but never deal with this sort of stuff!

Edited by ooid on Saturday 27th April 21:34