Search the website

Taking and using visual and audio images of patients

Guidance from the Medical Ethics Department
October 2007

Summary
The increasing use of technologies such as picture and video messaging has made it considerably easier to record, copy, store and transmit images of patients. Doctors may be interested in using the new technologies to aid rapid diagnosis and consultation and therefore improve patient care.

Doctors need to bear in mind that when used for clinical purposes such images form part of the patient’s medical record and the same standards of confidentiality, and the same requirements for consent to disclosure, apply. A small number of exceptions to these requirements are discussed in our guidance. The use of telephone imaging systems that are not specifically intended for medical use can also have medico-legal implications for practitioners. These guidelines therefore apply equally to both the use of these new technologies and to more conventional processes of recording and transmitting images of patients.

Where the images are not directly related to the patient’s care or treatment, express consent must be obtained both for making and using them.

Where such images are to be used in public media, written permission must be obtained, irrespective of whether the image is considered to be anonymous.

Where consent to making or using images of patients is not available because a patient lacks capacity, some recordings may be made where consent is obtained from someone close to the patient, or a proxy decision maker appointed under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 or the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Where the incapacity is temporary, consent must be sought once the patient regains capacity.