The need to ask patients for consent before publishing their details in journals and elsewhere is well established. The BMJ’s policy on this has been in place, with minor variations, for more than 10 years (http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/editorial-policies/copy_of_patient-confidentiality)

Yet we still receive articles that don’t have patient consent. To our surprise some authors don’t seem to have thought about it at all, but occasionally authors tell us that they can’t get consent for various reasons. We then enter murky and sometimes stormy waters, navigated with the help of the BMJ’s ethics committee. Is the case is of sufficient public …