On 15 Sep, 09:15, BobC wrote:
"A friend" who works for in the medical profession told me about a
patient who arrived for an appointment. He asked for his name, but as
he was foreign couldn't understand it, so asked him to spell it. In
response he offered his driving licence to copy it from.

But on seeing the licence, the picture was nothing like the person
presenting it. In fact not even the same skin colour!

I said "Well I assume you asked him to sit in the waiting room, while
you went and called the police!"
"Oh no we can't do anything like that, patient confidentiality means
we are not allowed to do anything about it".

This sounds balmy to me. This is surely important not only to the
authorities but also the doctor who will effectively be treating a
different person to who he thinks he is.

Does the goup feel this use of "patient confidentiality" is correct.
Discuss!

Many thanks for all your responses to my original post.
The answers seem all in favour of "my friend's" point of view and not
mine.
So I'll gracefully accept I was wrong.
Many thanks for clarifying the situation. That's what I was after.

BobC