Week 1 : Confidentiality
- Patients discuss intimate and personal details about themselves and have a right to expect that their disclosures will remain in confidence.
- If this was not the case patients would be frightened into non‑disclosure and this would greatly inhibit their treatment.
- Although the Hipprocatic Oath, (on which most medical rules of conduct are based), requires doctors to preserve the confidence of their patients, the law sometimes demands that doctors breach this confidence.
- Likewise, the Florence Nightingale Oath, (on which most nursing rules of conduct are based), requires nurses to preserve the confidence of their patients, the law sometimes demands that nurses breach this confidence.
- Unlike the lawyer‑client relationship there is no absolute privilege for doctors or nurses and patients ‑ merely a qualified privilege.
- Thus in both civil and criminal cases, a refusal by a doctor or a nurse to comply with a court order will result in a prosecution for contempt of court.