The UK government has quietly dropped a passage in the draft handbook to the NHS constitution that said that ministers had decided to give researchers the right to trawl medical records for research participants without the need for patients’ consent. Organisations that are charged with safeguarding patient confidentiality had objected strongly to a section in the draft handbook that said, "Patients can . . . expect that a health professional or a research professional who owes the same duty of confidentiality as a health professional may use care records, in confidence, to identify whether they are suitable to participate in approved clinical trials. Appropriate patients will be notified of opportunities to join in, and will be free to choose whether they wish to do so, after a full explanation."
An Act to establish and make provision in connection with a Care Quality Commission; to make provision about health care (including provision about the National Health Service) and about social care; to make provision about reviews and investigations under the Mental Health Act 1983; to establish and make provision in connection with an Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator and make other provision about the regulation of the health care professions; to confer power to modify the regulation of social care workers; to amend the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984; to provide for the payment of a grant to women in connection with pregnancy; to amend the functions of the Health Protection Agency; and for connected purposes.