In a small road accident claim, do we really need to know the full details of the claimant’s childhood medical history? ‘In modest personal injury claims, routine, unnecessary and inappropriate disclosure of the entirety of claimants’ medical records is not acceptable,’ Charles Davey, a barrister with The Barrister Group, writes in this week’s NLJ.
‘This is in clear violation of a solicitor’s duty of confidentiality and a potential breach of claimants’ rights… not to mention possible breaches of data protection legislation. To make matters worse, these records are frequently included in trial bundles.’
Davey, who has raised the issue with the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, wonders what purpose it serves and where this information ends up? More pertinently, has the claimant given informed consent to the disclosure of irrelevant, personal details?RELATED ARTICLES
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