{"id":8773,"date":"2013-02-12T15:02:17","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T15:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8773"},"modified":"2015-01-28T14:30:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T14:30:20","slug":"confidentiality-blogathon-1228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8773","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 12\/13 Confidentiality? Blogathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

this post should be filed under the ‘is it me?’ category, if I had one<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend has been admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford (hereafter known as ‘the JR’, which is nothing to do with fictional Texas-based oilmen, obv).<\/p>\n

My first thought:
\nHoly shit, she’s so young! (she’s still at school)<\/p>\n

My second thought:
\nGo see her and take some chocolate!<\/p>\n

So I stuffed a large bag of large Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons (yes, two larges back there) in to my laptop rucksack, for one of those days when I could stretch some time to visit the JR.<\/p>\n

Today was one of those days.<\/p>\n

\"JR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my way through Oxford I diverted to the JR and (miraculously) found a parking space.<\/p>\n

I schlepped (this is becoming my new favourite word) in to reception, walked up to the desk and gave the receptionist my most beamingest of smiles.<\/p>\n

‘My friend [firstname] [surname] has been admitted [with condition]. Could you tell me which ward she’s in so I can drop in this Get Well Card and some chocolate?’ I asked, waving an envelope and bag of chocolate.<\/p>\n

‘Can you tell me what you are to her?’<\/p>\n

‘I’m a friend.’<\/p>\n

‘No. I can’t tell you that’, replied the antipodean receptionist (she wasn’t actually in the antipodes, she was from there, but sitting in the JR).<\/p>\n

My jaw thudded on to the desk.<\/p>\n

‘Really??’ I responded, actually fitting two question marks in.<\/p>\n

‘That would be a breach of our patient confidentiality rules’, said The Guardian Of Patient Confidentiality (who I had mistakenly assumed to be a helpful receptionist).<\/p>\n

‘REALLY?????’<\/p>\n

She could sense my incredulity.<\/p>\n

‘I’m not making this up!’ she flung in my face.<\/p>\n

‘Hang on,’ I said nicely. ‘I’ve already told you the patient’s first name and her surname. I’ve told you the condition she has been admitted under. I can tell you her address. I can tell you she’s here. And yet you are telling me – for reasons of confidentiality – that you can’t tell me which ward I need to go to, to deliver this card and these chocolates??????????’<\/p>\n

I could sense the receptionist counting each of those\u00a0question marks (ten, in case you’re interested).<\/p>\n

‘That’s what I’m telling you’.<\/p>\n

I was tempted to ask which hospital directive she was following – and could she show me this directive in print – but I was so stunned at this new definition of ‘confidentiality’, that I picked my jaw up off the desk, turned around and left reception.<\/p>\n

I stood outside the doors, in plain site of The Guardian Of Patient Confidentiality, pulled out my phone, called the patient, and asked which ward she was imprisoned on.<\/p>\n

The I walked straight in to reception, past The Guardian Of Patient Confidentiality, walked down the corridor and in to the lift.<\/p>\n

As I walked out of the lift to my friend’s ward I wondered what would have happened, a few minutes ago, if I had lied about my relationship and had said I was the patient’s step-brother or cousin, would The Guardian Of Patient Confidentiality have granted me the information I had asked for?<\/p>\n

Or would The Guardian Of Patient Confidentiality have interrogated me, in tiny detail, over my friend’s physical and mental characteristics, until I eventually fluffed a question, and would she then have thrown me in to Hospital prison?<\/p>\n

But seriously, on the simple say-so of ‘I’m related to this person’, or ‘I’m not related to this person’, this is now a point of patient confidentiality?<\/p>\n

Really?<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/a><\/p>\n

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picks up jaw and wanders off muttering how much the Daily Mail would love this story<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

this post should be filed under the ‘is it me?’ category, if I had one A friend has been admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}