This guidance tells you the benefits and risks to consider when using social media platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube for patient care or discussing patients and their care.
It includes how to avoid breaching confidentiality. It also deals with other issues like what to do if a patient contacts you through your personal profile. And whether it’s ever acceptable to post anonymously.
This guidance came into effect 22 April 2013.
In Good medical practice we say:
36. You must treat colleagues fairly and with respect.
65. You must make sure that your conduct justifies your patients’ trust in you and the public’s trust in the profession.
69. When communicating publicly, including speaking to or writing in the media, you must maintain patient confidentiality. You should remember when using social media that communications intended for friends or family may become more widely available.
70. When advertising your services, you must make sure the information you publish is factual and can be checked, and does not exploit patients’ vulnerability or lack of medical knowledge.
118. Many improper disclosures of patient information are unintentional. Conversations in reception areas, at a patient’s bedside and in public places may be overheard. Notes and records may be seen by other patients, unauthorised staff, or the public if they are not managed securely. Patient details can be lost if handover lists are misplaced, or when patient notes are in transit.
119. You must make sure any personal information about patients that you hold or control is effectively protected at all times against improper access, disclosure or loss. You should not leave patients’ records, or other notes you make about patients, either on paper or on screen, unattended. You should not share passwords.
Privacy
- Social media sites cannot guarantee confidentiality whatever privacy settings are in place.
- Patients, your employer and potential employers, or any other organisation that you have a relationship with, may be able to access your personal information.
- Information about your location may be embedded within photographs and other content and available for others to see.
- Once information is published online it can be difficult to remove as other users may distribute it further or comment on it.
The benefits and risks of using social media
- engaging people in public health and policy discussions
- establishing national and international professional networks
- facilitating patients’ access to information about health and services.
Maintaining boundaries
Maintaining confidentiality
Respect for colleagues
16 When interacting with or commenting about individuals or organisations online, you should be aware that postings online are subject to the same laws of copyright and defamation8 as written or verbal communications, whether they are made in a personal or professional capacity.
Social media
You must also follow our guidance on prescribing, which gives advice on using internet sites for the provision of medical services.