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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Dr breached my confidentiality

105 replies

wishes1111 · 14/04/2021 15:42

Hello

I have a long history of being fed up with this doctor, since I was 16 and went to him with a bad cough and he told me I was depressed, I ended up in hospital that night with pleurisy.

I have depression and anxiety anyway and when I was 18, he accused me of buying diazepam off the internet (something I have never done). Growing up with addict parents, I am very careful and have never taken drugs that have not been prescribed to me.

After this, I requested that he didn't contact me again.

I put a request in last week online for some propanalol which I have on a repeat prescription and I gave the reason as "anxiety".

My regular dr gave me a call to check I didn't need anything stronger as I have been under the community mental health team. I said I was okay and just needed some more propanalol, she was happy with this and sent my prescription through as requested.

I went back onto my work calls and whilst I was working I had 4 missed calls from my DH. I called him back and he was panicking as he said the Dr (the one I had trouble) with called him whilst he was out at work and said "I can't get hold of (name) and she put a request in for anxiety medication". I hadn't spoken to DH about this as my anxiety wasn't severe and it was just my usual prescription request.

I am angry that he called DH, his number is not on my file as confirmed by a receptionist but he is listed underneath my address. There is no consent given for him to be contacted to discuss on my behalf and the receptionist said the Dr must have searched my surname and address to obtain his phone number.

Am I right to put a complaint in about this? I wouldn't know where to start. Is it a breach of my data protection? AIBU?

OP posts:
butterrcup · 14/04/2021 17:47

Id be reporting a data breach if that was me!

EasterEggBelly · 14/04/2021 17:56

YANBU. In true MN style, I would be incandescent with rage.

Gobbeldegook · 14/04/2021 18:03

He needs to be struck off

RuthW · 14/04/2021 18:06

I am a data manager in a surgery. This is not acceptable. Please make a formal complaint to the practice manager.

HelpIcantfindaname · 14/04/2021 18:13

I'd definitely complain.

Im not usually one to complain either, but when my daughter was 19 she lost her firstborn son to cotdeath when he was nearly 3 months old. She was at the gp shortly afterwards & he said to her 'don't worry, you are young, you can have another one.'

This was the same gp who paid a house call to my dad many years earlier, dad has bipolar, & could not get out of bed. This gp told him 'you are a man, pull yourself together'. Dad ended up in hospital for 3 months.

Member984815 · 14/04/2021 18:18

Please report it , that's a massive breach

IdblowJonSnow · 14/04/2021 18:27

Yanbu.

Darren67 · 14/04/2021 18:32

Complain to your CCG , google it and you will find yours x

SuperintendentHastings · 14/04/2021 18:34

OP you are definitely not being unreasonable.

I had a similar incident in that the hospital called my home number and spoke to MIL (she was babysitting at the time). She immediately said that she wasn't me, but could let me know that they had called. The woman on the end of the phone told MIL that it was regarding my operation to remove my ovaries and gave her a date for the OP, asking me to call back to confirm. I was SO pissed off. We hadn't told MIL deliberately because she worries so much and even if we had, no one should have been discussing it with anyone else but me.

Merryoldgoat · 14/04/2021 18:37

Of course you should complain - 100%

Can I ask why you’re still registered with that surgery? I’d have left a surgery like that in a heartbeat and changed surgeries for much less.

theDudesmummy · 14/04/2021 18:37

Not just a breach of data protection, it may well be a breach of GMC Confidentiality regulations. You could complain to the GMC

Elieza · 14/04/2021 18:39

I think I’d want to know what happened and why the doctor thought they should make contact when another doctor had already done so.

I can only presume there was a miscommunication and the old doctor didn’t realise the new one had dealt with your request already, and was trying to deal with it. Perhaps because the new doctor is part time it they are on a rota due to covid or something.

The gp must have been seriously worried about you. Perhaps because the last time he/she fucked up and you ended up in hospital. They must have thought you could have been suicidal and were desperate to contact you to save your life.

Doctors are people too and he/she may also be in their last frayed nerve having dealt with covid and all that entails for over a year now. My friends a nurse and I know she’s at breaking point.

HaveringWavering · 14/04/2021 18:40

@SuperintendentHastings

OP you are definitely not being unreasonable.

I had a similar incident in that the hospital called my home number and spoke to MIL (she was babysitting at the time). She immediately said that she wasn't me, but could let me know that they had called. The woman on the end of the phone told MIL that it was regarding my operation to remove my ovaries and gave her a date for the OP, asking me to call back to confirm. I was SO pissed off. We hadn't told MIL deliberately because she worries so much and even if we had, no one should have been discussing it with anyone else but me.

And did you complain @SuperintendentHastings?
LadyMonicaBaddingham · 14/04/2021 18:43

As well as complaining to the practice manager, I would seriously consider reporting a GDPR breach directly to the ICO yourself.

Irritatingly, the website and therefore the online reporting is out of action until. 9pm today for 'essential maintenance' - but there's always tomorrow

Brindisi32 · 14/04/2021 18:44

YANBU Raise a complaint. I would be livid. This isn't a silly mistake. He shouldn't be involved with your care, he's overstepped those boundaries and contacted your partner.

Polly99 · 14/04/2021 18:48

OP, there is also the possibility that someone at the surgery put your DH's number on your file by accident, eg if you have the same last name.
That is what happened at my GP. They kept leaving messages on my DHs phone inviting me for smears and to the asthma clinic. I told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to sort it out and I think they have corrected their systems since.

theDudesmummy · 14/04/2021 18:48

Duty of confidence to patients can only be set aside in specific situations, this doesn't sound remotely like one of them...

Oblomov21 · 14/04/2021 18:53

Please Make a formal complaint to the practice manager. this is disgusting.

mangoandraspberries · 14/04/2021 19:01

Agree it’s a data protection breach.

However I’m intrigued by why you are angry that he told your DH (I’d be angry if he’d told friend or a colleague for example, but if it was just my DH I wouldn’t be worried, he’d probably already know).

In any case, it’s a breach and if it’s annoyed, I would report.

HaveringWavering · 14/04/2021 19:01

Out of interest OP, what does your DP think about this? Did it occur to him at the time that it was a breach of confidentiality? The reason I ask is that too many people don’t stop and think that things like telling a man confidential info about his wife are inappropriate, and so those doing it go unchallenged. It all reeks of misogyny too. It would have been great if he had said at the time “I don’t think you should be telling me this.”

Original poster
wishes1111 · 14/04/2021 19:02

Thank you everyone.

I am so sorry to hear of the stories on here where you've been put in danger or just simply had personal information shared without your consent.

I asked and double confirmed with the receptionist that my Husband's number was not under my name. She confirmed this, I asked if calls are recorded, she also confirmed this.

Sorry to clear up any confusion, he was duty dr in the afternoon as well as my usual Dr, he called me whilst I was on the phone to the other doctor. I did not know this until I got a text message saying "(name) I would like to talk to you regarding your approach to your medication" this confused me enough as it is because I didn't understand what he meant by approach, I just put my prescription in as usual.

When I called the surgery after my husband called me, as soon as I said I'm calling about Dr (name), she made a loud breath noise as if I wasn't the only person to call.

I'm lucky that my Husband knows about my anxiety and depression and medication because we are open about this but I know so many other people keep it quiet or simply don't feel they can tell their partner. However it did cause him to panic a little that the Dr had phoned him about me (DH is one of those who never goes to the Dr and is rarely ill, thank goodness) he assumed this was an urgent matter.

The Dr in question has always been questionable, my grandmother actually refused to book any appointment with him after my grandfather died as she went a month after he passed away because she was struggling to cope and he said "it's life, people die", she found his brutal honesty but lack of compassion shocking.

I've been at the surgery all my life, I know the nurses who do my smears etc I feel comfortable there except from in the hands of said doctor.

Thank you for everyone's advice, I will make a complaint. I guess I'm not one to usually make any complaints and I don't like the thought of anyone being in trouble because of me but I am to be quite honest, sick of dealing with this man.

OP posts:
Original poster
wishes1111 · 14/04/2021 19:04

@HaveringWavering DH was shocked and thought it was very urgent hence his repeated calls (DH is laid back) so this is unlike him to repeatedly call me. He agreed I should put a complaint in, I wouldn't say it's misogyny, he knows about my anxiety and it was a very brief phone call.

OP posts:
HaveringWavering · 14/04/2021 19:05

However I’m intrigued by why you are angry that he told your DH (I’d be angry if he’d told friend or a colleague for example, but if it was just my DH I wouldn’t be worried, he’d probably already know)

Sometimes the DH is the LAST person who a patient would want to know about medical issues- you cannot and should not make any assumptions and it is dangerous to suggest that spousal relationships somehow create an exception to a rule.

My reading of this is that OP is annoyed in principle, not because it was a problem that her DH found out about the prescription.

HaveringWavering · 14/04/2021 19:06

I wouldn't say it's misogyny, he knows about my anxiety and it was a very brief phone call.

By misogyny I meant treating a woman as an extension of her husband and not affording her respect as an individual to whom a duty of confidentiality is owed.

osbertthesyrianhamster · 14/04/2021 19:08

Of course it's misogyny. Do you think he behaves this way about or to other males? I highly doubt it.

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