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Hands off our children!

This petition was closed on 12th May 2020 with a total of 6,918 signatures.

Please sign our petition to the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Theresa May, calling for Government to scrap the guidance stopping parental access to children’s medical records

We thought it was maybe misinterpretation of new GDPR requirements, when parents started to receive letters from their doctors’ surgeries telling them they would no longer be allowed access to their child’s medical records, unless the child gave explicit permission.  It appears, however, that we were wrong, because the Government has now issued a Briefing Paper entitled Patient records and confidentiality.   And as s part of this, The British Medical Association (BMA) has produced guidance on confidentiality and the disclosure of health records in relation to children.  The guidance states:

‘…children who are aged 12 or over are generally expected to have capacity to give or withhold their consent to the release of information …

If the child is competent to understand what is involved in the proposed treatment, the health professional should, unless there are convincing reasons to the contrary … respect the child’s wishes if they do not want parents or guardians to know. However, every reasonable effort must be made to persuade the child to involve parents or guardians particularly for important or life-changing decisions.’ (House of Commons Briefing Paper, Number 07103, 25 May 2018)