ABSTRACT
The patient can stop his doctor from disclosing details of his confidential information in virtually all situations save in the courtroom. The courts have refused to recognise any special rule of evidence which would give the patient that right. But why have they consistently rejected such a privilege? Why is it that while certain professional confidential information is protected, other professional information is not? If lawyer-client confidences are protected, then why not doctor-patient? Why protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and of other sources of information given in confidence, for example to the NSPCC, and yet exclude medical confidential information? Does this represent a fundamental inconsistency in the protection of personal information at trial? If it does, then it should be remedied. Or is the answer that information is safeguarded not because of the fact that it is confidential per se but on other grounds? If this is the case, then perhaps the time has come for some reconsideration of the protection of confidential information in the courtroom.
