Managing and reporting notifiable disease in the sexual health clinic.
Notifiable infections can be and often are transmitted sexually and the process of notification often does not work well in the GUM setting. It is the statutory duty of medical practitioners to report notifiable infections, but there are a number of barriers to reporting in sexual health, in particular concerns that notification may breach confidentiality. In this article, we hope to explain the reporting process and aim to highlight why we need to report and what health protection teams do with the information provided. We hope to make the process simple so that GUM clinics can fulfil their public health obligations and enable timely and appropriate public health action to be taken.
Mortimer Market Centre, London, UK.
Sophie
S
Herbert
Public Health England, London, UK.
Kirsty
K
Hewitt
Division of Primary Care and Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton, UK.
Jackie A
JA
Cassell
D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities; D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000635:transmission; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D062486:Public Health Surveillance; D060728:Reproductive Health; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000635:transmission; D006113:United Kingdom
Genitourinary Medicine; Notification of Communicable Diseases; Public Health; Sexual Health