Need-to-know is now right-to-know

Link: BBC NEWS

Under the legislation, all public authorities are required to maintain lists of the information they publish proactively, known as publication schemes. For example, the NHS website now publishes information on the local rates of MRSA, the so-called 'superbug' infections in each local hospital.

Comments

[Derek Butler]

It is good that the government are now making public authorities more open about items within there own domain,but isn't it time that Doctors were forced by law to be as open as this government now want these public bodies to be.My reason for saying this,is that my stepfather died with MRSA,and we his family were never informed that he had this terrible bug.We only ever found out that he had this infection of MRSA when we requested his medical notes.This was after 5 months of correspondance with the hospital he was in,and subsequently died in.When we asked them why we had never been told,there reply was that they were under no legal obligation to tell us,why doesn't the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT make the Doctors have to tell patients/relatives of patients about there condition under law,that would be a far better FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT than the one that has been introduced.People have/should have a right to know if there is a condition that is effecting or is serious enough to be of a detriment to there health,especially if it is the hospital that has given it to them.