Doctor-patient confidentiality has always been less important than the safety of the patient and the people around them. IME, it's always been the case that if you showed signs of being a real danger to yourself and others, your doctor would be obliged to inform people with the power to stop/help you, and you were reliant on your doctor being sensible enough to recognise that you saying "I really hate my neighbours" does not pose a "real danger" to them.
Not sure about over here, but when I was in highschool in Canada it was technically that they would only break confidentiality if you made an actual threat to harm yourself or another; "I wish I could just hit someone" being not an actual threat, but "I am going to punch my brother's lights out tomorrow" being more serious.
It still leaves a lot down to the judgement of the doctor or other professional(s) involved... but it's a lot different than "tipping off" police about people who drink heavily, have mental health problems or have a violent background.
I've seen some doctors make some very odd seeming decisions and have some dodgy reactions, but I think the vast majority of them know when they hear something that concerns them enough to call somebody to protect you or others.
I can see this not working so well with some dodgy guidelines telling them to be on the lookout for specific behaviours or circumstances which they have to tell the police about. Depending on how the guidelines and the law is written, this may make doctors far more inclined to tell the police about people that are not actually going to do anything either because they (rightly or wrongly) interpret the guidelines/law that way, or might lower the threshold of risk where they make that decision because of the laws existence. What about consequences for the increased number of people that this would falsely accuse of being unsafe?
Put looking for risk factors with the NHS Care records service, and you have profiling based on medical records, possibly completely away and without the knowledge of the patient and their doctors. Fun.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 10:55 am (UTC)It still leaves a lot down to the judgement of the doctor or other professional(s) involved... but it's a lot different than "tipping off" police about people who drink heavily, have mental health problems or have a violent background.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 04:05 pm (UTC)I can see this not working so well with some dodgy guidelines telling them to be on the lookout for specific behaviours or circumstances which they have to tell the police about. Depending on how the guidelines and the law is written, this may make doctors far more inclined to tell the police about people that are not actually going to do anything either because they (rightly or wrongly) interpret the guidelines/law that way, or might lower the threshold of risk where they make that decision because of the laws existence. What about consequences for the increased number of people that this would falsely accuse of being unsafe?
Put looking for risk factors with the NHS Care records service, and you have profiling based on medical records, possibly completely away and without the knowledge of the patient and their doctors. Fun.