Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Patel and Lord Lucas

Monday 6th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, if I have understood the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, wrongly, I am sure that he will correct me. However, the impression he gave was that the confidentiality between a doctor and a patient forbids the doctor to inform a family member if the patient is likely to suffer harm, even self-inflicted harm. That is not the case. The doctor is bound to respect confidentiality, but if that is likely to result in not informing the family of the harm that may be caused to a patient, or distress to the family, it is not true that confidentiality will still hold.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am glad to know that. I have not dealt directly with a doctor on this at all but rather with university and school authorities. In those cases—not steadily and not, thank goodness, frequently—I have encountered a complete unwillingness to risk telling anybody anything for reasons of confidentiality. I hope that principle is misunderstood, but this certainly happens. In cases where there is a very clear principle of confidentiality, the circumstances under which it can reasonably be interpreted as being in the best interests of the patient to breach it need to be better understood by people who are not medically trained so that they feel confident in passing the information back. I am not trying to create law in an extremely difficult area. I hoped that the Bill might lead over time to universities feeling that parents were part of the solution, and to schools feeling that other children were part of the solution, and feeling confident that guidelines had been evolved which allowed them to seek support for these children beyond just their own tight resources. I am delighted to hear what the noble Lord said but that is not what gets through once it has been through the filter of university, at least on the occasions that I have dealt with it. I probably see the cases that go wrong. If something has worked out right, there is no reason why it should come to me.