If medical confidentiality is not observed patients may well be reluctant to disclose information to their doctors or even to seek medical advice. Therefore, argues the author, it is of the utmost importance that doctors strive to protect medical confidentiality, particularly now when it is under threat not only in this country but also overseas. The profession must cease to regard ethical issues to do with confidentiality, and indeed to do with all areas of medical practice, as abstract phenomena requiring no justification. If it does not then it will come under increasing and justified criticism from the community it serves.
KIE: The author observes that if medical confidentiality is not respected, patients may be reluctant to disclose information pertinent to their care. He describes situations in which British law requires that medical confidence be violated, and cites examples such as the current campaign to deny the legal right of minors to obtain contraceptives without parental notification, to demonstrate that neither the British Parliament nor the courts are sufficiently sensitive to the problems of confidentiality. Havard also discusses situations where voluntary disclosure of information is ethically warranted, and urges physicians to cease regarding issues of confidentiality as "abstract phenomena" requiring no justification.