Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to issue updated guidance to NHS trusts on protecting patient confidentiality in shared hospital wards, including the use of patient identifiers, bedside information displays and the management of sensitive clinical conversations.

National Health Service organisations are responsible for ensuring that they meet their legal and professional obligations in relation to patient confidentiality and the privacy of patients receiving care. This includes compliance with data protection legislation, the common law duty of confidentiality, and the principles set out in the guidance entitled Confidentiality: NHS Code of Practice.