Published 11 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a777
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a777
News
Patient consent for information sharing not always possible or appropriate
Michael Cross
1 London
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The test of informed consent for sharing personal medical data has come under attack in a long awaited review of data sharing commissioned by the UK prime minister. The test is a linchpin of the BMA’s policy on computerised health records.
The review, by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner and Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, says that although people should be asked for consent "wherever possible" before personal data is shared, it is not always possible or appropriate. It would "be wrong to focus too heavily on consent as a means of legitimising information sharing."
"Consent is not the be all and end all," Dr Walport said in an interview with the BMJ. In many everyday situations services are not available without consent to share information—applying for a credit card, for example. He said that the same rule should apply to medical records. "Medical practice cannot be
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