Clause 15 - Disclosure of information about assessments
Drugs Bill
11:15 am
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
Clause 15 provides that information obtained as a result of the initial assessment or follow-up assessment may not be disclosed without the individual's written consent, save for information sharing purposes between those persons involved in the conduct of an initial or follow-up assessment.
That does not affect the initial assessor's ability under clause 17 to disclose information about the initial assessment for the purpose of determination by the court, but it is about making sure that information sharing should happen through different protocols. Those information sharing protocols would have to apply and be implemented within the established legal framework.
The legislation provides that the information obtained as a result of the initial and follow-up assessments may be disclosed to a third party only with the individual's express written consent, except in a case in which information sharing might be necessary. It might be necessary to share that information with a number of people for a number of reasons. Let us not forget that the assessor is not prescribing; the assessment process is a means of identifying whom people need to see in order to take follow-up action. Let us also remember that GPs can disclose medical information only with the consent of the patient.
We could turn the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw around and say that those involved with drug addicts and working in drug intervention programmes should have an automatic right to see the records of individual patients in a GP's practice. He might agree with that, but there are disclosure issues in the example that he gave. He mentioned Ms X, who is receiving both treatment for drug addiction from drug treatment agencies and anti-depressants from her GP. I hope that if she has visited him as a constituent, he has advised her that that information is worth sharing. My experience—I do not say that it is foolproof—is that the drug users whom I have met have given permission for people to contact different organisations and groups.
Let me give an example from another field, prostitution. A number of the mobile outreach units that work in areas in which prostitutes operate engage with those involved, who are mainly women, about their drug taking. The mobile units have clean needles to exchange, but they also have information about where people can go if they want to talk and to get assistance with their drug problem. I know that those working on such projects ask the women whether they are prepared to sign waivers so that they can follow up and find out what has happened. That works very well.
I do not feel that what my hon. Friend has said is necessarily pertinent to this clause, but I shall think about it. It is not an easy situation. Currently, GPs are not obliged to provide medical information without the consent of the patient. If we were to opt for a different route, we would have to be mindful that it could be a two-way street.