Bill Harvey: Trust me, I’m an optometrist

The Data Protection Act is designed to protect data more than protect people.

Such were the thoughts of one commentator this week. In primary eye care, the times that we have to consider breaching the maintenance of patient confidentiality and adherence to data protection usually relate to one of two scenarios. The most obvious example concerns driving, where a patient clearly has a level of vision lower than that needed to take the number plate test and where they are considered to represent a danger to themselves and the public.

Most of us would be comfortable in such an instance contacting the AOP to seek clarification about informing a third party without the consent of the patient in order to protect lives. Recent high profile cases have given some weight to this.