Limitations of confidentiality

How far should we go in keeping secret what our patients tell us and in what they want us to tell others? This potential moral dilemma is well illustrated in a new and revealing Channel 4 drama about Mo Mowlam, the former Northern Ireland secretary who suffered a brain tumour while she was in office. The story of how Mo Mowlam misled everybody, including the-then prime minister Tony Blair, is the subject of Neil McKay’s latest investigative film. The fascinating and pertinent point of the story for nurses is the fact that ‘honest Mo’, as she was known, refused to tell the truth about her condition to those who voted for her and trusted her in what was an important point of the Northern Ireland peace talks.