For more information on how to submit a paper to a specific BMJ Journal, please visit the instructions for authors’ page for
the journal that is of interest to you. BMJ Journals A-Z
Patient confidentiality
Our policy is based on the UK’s Data Protection Act, the English common law of confidentiality, and the traditions of medical
ethics.
- Any article that contains personal medical information about an identifiable living individual requires the patient’s explicit
consent before we can publish it. We would like the patient to sign our consent form, which requires the patient to have read
the article.
- If consent cannot be obtained because the patient cannot be traced then publication will be possible only if the information
can be sufficiently anonymised. Anonymisation means that neither the patient nor anyone else could identify the patient with
certainty.
A consequence of any anonymisation is likely to be the loss of information/evidence.
If this happens we will include the following note at the end of the paper: Detail has been removed from this case description/these
case descriptions to ensure anonymity. The editors and reviewers have seen the detailed information available and are satisfied
that the information backs up the case the authors are making.
Such anonymisation might, at an extreme, involve making the authors of the article anonymous.
- If the patient is dead the Data Protection Act does not apply, but the authors should seek permission from a relative (as
a matter of courtesy and medical ethics)
If the relatives are not contactable we will balance the worthwhileness of the case, the likelihood of identification, and
the likelihood of offence if identified in making a decision on whether we should publish without a relative’s consent.
- This policy applies to any identifiable medical information. The most obvious places where this occurs is in case reports,
anecdotes, and photographs of patients. However, the issue may also arise in articles describing research if the numbers in
some subgroups are very small.
- Our policy on obtaining consent for publication of pictures of patients is a subset of our general policy on patient confidentiality.
If there is any chance that a patient may be identified from a photograph or other image or from its legend or accompanying
text we need the patient’s written consent to publication in the BMJGroup.
- Images – such as x rays, laparoscopic images, ultrasound images, pathology slides, or images of undistinctive parts of the
body – may be used without consent so long as they are anonymised by the removal of any identifying marks and are not accompanied
by text that could reveal the patient’s identity through clinical or personal detail.
- An exception to this policy of needing consent for recognisable photographs of individuals is when we use photographs from
picture agencies to illustrate news stories and other articles. We state where these photographs have come from and we rely
on the fact that the agencies and their photographers have obtained the relevant permissions from the people shown in the
photographs. If we doubt that someone photographed could have given consent – owing for example to severe mental illness or
learning disability – we will use our discretion and avoid using such images.
