Confidentiality And The Common Law Of Confidentiality

The Data Protection Act (1998) requires that personal details and information must be kept secure and confidential. Confidentiality is necessary in any Health and Care Social setting because it maintains between the individuals and the organisation. An environment of trust encourages people to be open and honest with those who care for them. They provide all the details necessary so that they receive the best care possible. The employers are accountable to the regulators for protecting confidentiality .Preserving privacy and confidentiality is essential so that they do not risk the discipline of being struck off a professional register. Each member of the staff has a responsibility to ensure that the care record are accurate recorded. A clear information will aid patients to participate fully in decision making about their

Confidentiality is a concept of vast importance for professionals in the medical field. It is a professional obligation in this field and is considered to be an ethical concept that falls in line with integrity, compassion, veracity, charity, and fidelity as explained in both the International Council of Nurses Code for Nurses (1973) and the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics (1985). However, in today’s ever growing world of technology and demand for information, challenges continue to arise that force doctors and nurses to reexamine virtues such as confidentiality.

There are a number of legal and ethical duties expected of nurses. Most of these involve care for patient’s autonomy and confidentiality despite the medical care. Failure to act regarding these can give rise to liability. One aspect of Patient’s autonomy involves giving or withholding his consent about treatment. This paper takes into account ‘consent’ as the aspect of law regarding nursing.

Confidentiality is critical for nursing professional to understand and undertake. If a nurse did not keep a

Concepts of reasonable limits refers to limiting one’s actions or in reference to nursing, limiting what one can say or do in terms of a patient’s care (Jonstone & Fry, 2002). When discussing reasonable limits, a nurse has to take into consideration at what point is enough, enough. For example, in the case study regarding Mrs. Z, reasonable limit would prevent the nurse from pushing the patient further into pursuing treatment and disclosing her medical prognosis to her family. Mrs. Z is a lucid individual, so the nurse and doctor caring for her would have to limit their interference in disclosing information to her husband due to reasonable limits. In nursing, there are times when breaking a patient’s confidentiality becomes an ethical issue. If the nurse was thinking in terms of Utilitarianism, breaching confidentiality would be the only reasonable thing to do. For example, if a patient who is HIV positive is knowingly having unprotected sex in order to infect other people, it would only be right to break the confidentiality of their diagnosis to prevent further harm to other individuals in the future. Sometimes, in order to protect the greatest amount of people, confidentiality has to be broken. Another example where a healthcare individual can break confidentiality is if a minor is being harmed and the minor does not want to disclose to anyone their situation. For

I intend to look at why confidentiality is so important within healthcare and how it relates to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) Code. I will look at the

Healthcare provider’s perception and judgment in the patient’s well being as well as taking into account the right of the patient in every action is one of the key elements in nursing practice. International Council of Nurses (ICN), (2006) states “The nurse at all times maintains standards of personal conduct which reflect well on the profession and enhance public confidence” (p. 3). Furthermore, nursing action guided by theory and principles of moral and legal

The ANMC (2010, pp.6) state on the topic of confidentiality, that nurses must insure the information obtained in a professional setting remain private and that information received is not used by nurses to give them an advantage or power in any way. Education in the matter is one solution to guarantee the boundaries and to keep a professional position. These breaches can be classified as boundary crossings, boundary violations or sexual misconduct and can lead to violations of a nurse’s professional responsibility causing consequences to occur.

This assignment tries to explain the role Nursing and Midwifery Council plays in safeguarding the public and maintaining standard care within the UK. Establishing and maintaining standard rules and regulation and legislations which are there to safeguard people. In order to do that, the author will discuss how the MNC seeks to safeguarding the patients specifically restricting discussing on mental health by regulating mental health nursing. Key terminologies such as regulation and Mental Health Nursing, confidentiality, advocacy, person centered care, fitness to practice, accountability and whistleblowing will be considered and at the same time stating their significance in nursing profession. Furthermore the Author will briefly outline the responsibilities of the NMC and the code of practice. It will then look at by the Mental Health user’s duty to maintain confidentiality and what happen to a care worker if they break confidentiality. The author will then consider if the NMC has properly seek to protect the public or not and said which areas do they need to improve.

The Royal College of Nursing (2015) (RCN), believe professional values are to be followed to create the evolving nurse, with Advocacy highlighted as a fundamental feature. The central thesis of this paper is to reflect my understanding of advocacy against my own clinical practice as a first-year student nurse. The analysis to reflect on this clinical practice will use Driscolls (2007) ‘The What?’ Model, which questions the stages of the learning cycles to reflect on, the incident, what has been learned and the outcome on both current and future practice. Patient Confidentiality will be protected and respected throughout this reflection as described in The Nursing and Midwifery code (2015) (NMC), and The Data Protection Act (1988), all personal information including the patient’s name is considered privileged information and be dealt in a way which does not comprise the patient’s dignity or infringe upon their right to privacy.

As healthcare providers, maintaining a patient’s confidentiality, human dignity and privacy is expected at all times. Nurses are faced with maintaining patient confidentiality on a daily basis. The Coded of Ethics for Nurses is the framework of nonnegotiable ethical standards and obligations that all nurses are to uphold. Nurses are to be accountable for their actions and are expected to advocate and strive to protect the rights, health and safety of patients (American Nurses Association, 2011).

The main focus of the article is to look at the absolute value of patients’ confidentiality. Blightman et al. look at the pros and cones of breaking patient’s confidentiality and conclude that a breached of confidentiality is in order when it is necessary to obtain consent, as required by law, or when it is in the best interest of the public. The article is useful to my subject, since it examines in details the main issues involving the safeguard of patients’ information. In addition, the authors define confidential information, looks at breaching confidentiality for consent, audits, protection of children, disclosure to family and friends, statutory disclosure, prevention of crime, public interest, public safety, public health, and disclosure to the media. The paper publication is Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care & Pain, which s a joint publication of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and The Royal College of Anaesthetists in the UK. It is also the official journal of The Faculty of Pain Medicine and The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland. Publication in such an esteemed journal requires utterly scrutinized of reliability and credibility of the information provided. I found the article educational and thorough in its coverage of aspects of breach of patient information. It is also well written and easy to understand.

Privacy is one of the fundamental policies and principles that should be adhered to by each professional nurse (Cileska, 2001). In addition, confidentiality is another equally important principle that should be observed by each of the nurses in the nursing profession. The reason for emphasising on confidentiality and privacy is meant to preserve the nursing ethics and to protect the privacy of the patients (Dickenson, 2004). Since most of the diseases are not meant to be exposed to the public, it should be the responsibility of each nurse to ensure that all patient information remains private and confidential this gives hope and trust to the

This essay will discuss why confidentiality is important within nursing practice and the reasons why a registered nurse and student nurse are accountable and to whom they are accountable to in relation to patient care. It will further discuss patient’s rights in relation to law.

Confidentiality is central to trust between doctors, medical team and patients. Patients have a right to expect that information about them will be held in confidence. The birth of the Hippocratic Oath in the fourth century started the responsibility of physicians to preserve the privacy and confidentiality of their patients. One of the provisions of the Oath lays the ethical foundation for the physician’s duty of confidentiality even beyond the circumstances of medical care. The Florence Nightingale Pledge, which was composed in 1893, was a modification of the “Hippocratic Oath,” a statement of the ethics and principles of the nursing profession. Included in the pledge is to hold in confidence