Ensuring confidentiality

Sokol and Car1 suggest that identification of patients over the telephone is impossible because others may impersonate patients to request test results, breaching confidentiality. A suggestion is that patients be seen face-to-face and no information be given over the telephone. Besides increasing the amount of work in surgery and inconvenience to patients, I do not believe that this would achieve the objective. It cannot be guaranteed that the person who comes into the consulting room is who they say they are. In fact, worryingly often they are not, either due to mistake (such as deafness), or, quite possibly, by impersonation, and I cannot identify all our practice patients by sight, and never will be able to.

• © British Journal of General Practice, 2006.