Vargrh
Gallente
Forsaken Empire
   |
Posted - 2006.10.20 21:44:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Vargrh on 20/10/2006 21:45:19
Any individual citizen in the UK has a right to access his/her medical records, refering to both the data protection act and the medical records act, guidance provided by the GMC and the Department of Health to NHS trusts explicitly states this. There are a few exceptions, where some information can be witheld. For example if it is believed that by reading a confidential psychiatric report, it it significantly likely to cause you immediate further harm to your mental health etc, they could refuse to disclose that specific thing to you. However even if you have a mental illness sufficient to result in that being determined, a doctor can only legally withold those parts of your medical history related to that, and not the general information they hold on other illness/tests/etc. In fact by witholding such information they commit a number of offences that would have a serious impact on their attempt to reregister with the GMC if you litigated against them and won, so its in their best interest to release information they hold on you at your request unless they are willing to go before a tribunal and proove it was neccessary to protect your immediate mental health to withold it. The other acception is where a specific part of your records might reveal confidential information about a third party who hasnt given consent for that information to be revealed.
Unless a doctor can proove likely harm to your physical or mental health as a result of revealing information they hold on you, or has a genuine reason to withold a specific piece of information to protect third parties privacy, you have grounds to challenge under the data protection act section 7, access to medical records act 1988 section 7, a human rights remedy if its a NHS doctor/or private but funded from the public purse, as well as your common law rights.
It is worth noting The right of access to health records under the Data Protection Act is not absolute, however. Under the Data Protection (Subject Access Modification)(Health) Order 2000, data which might otherwise have to be disclosed can be withheld if it would be likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of the data subject or any other person(again similar to the acceptions with the other acts above)...
Claiming something like 'oh my patient was mildly depressed so i refused him/her access to his records) is not a defence. It has to be a significant likely hood of harm coming about by them revealing your medical records to you, before they can refuse you.
I'm not certain of the situation in the US, you have consitutional rights to freedom of information which would include confidential information held about you in the trust of third parties, but I'm clueles as to what individual state legislation might say on the matter.
The underlying princiiples of access unless immediate or significant harm can be shown to be a liklely result, would likely be similarly enshrined into state law thou.
|