ABSTRACT
Information given to a health professional remains the property of the patient. Patients attend for healthcare in the belief that the personal information that they supply, or which is found out about them during investigation or treatment, will be confidential. The development of modern information technology and the increasing amount of multidisciplinary teamwork in patient care make confidentiality difficult to uphold. The general public and patients are generally ignorant of the extent to which information about them is passed around the NHS. The chair of the research ethics committee advises that plan should be classed as research rather than audit as it involves contact with patients outside their usual NHS care. The practice where we work has received a patient complaint about lack of privacy for patients in the treatment room. This has prompted all as a practice team to review the way that complaints system functions.
