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re: advice sought: patient records in manuscript collections 

We hold a large amount of material relating to patient care covering all 
aspects clinical and psychaitric care. The Contemporary Medical Archives 
Centre receives papers from general practitioners, consultants and 
specialists, plus records from charities (some representing patients) and 
professional medical bodies. As a result we have experience of negotiating 
over issues of sensitivity and access. We handle access in various ways;-
1. All our readers sign an undertaking which includes a clause that the 
reader shall not publish or communicate to any other person, names or 
particulars of individuals where medical information or material of a 
private or sensitive nature relating to individuals is involved.
2. We will close some items for varying periods of time up to 100 years, or, 
in a few cases, until the death of certain individuals. Closure will depend 
on the nature of the records, and obviously we try to act as honest broker 
between needs of donor depositor/patient/client and the researcher. It may 
help that we are  effectively a national centre for the history of medicine, 
so do not have a strong local interest in the records. We recognise that 
many historians are not actually interested in the names of patients, but in 
the lessons to be learnt from various aspects of patient care (e.g. when new 
apparatus is actually used in hospitals), and to close everything for a100 
years  would be a serious block for medical historians.(Scotland 
incidentally operates 75 -year closure for public medical records).
3. We will not supply copies of certain items, or if we do will blank out 
names if patients.
4. In some cases the full list of a collections remains on file only and is 
not normally available to the researcher.
5. Some items we class as 'restricted' and use our discretion in issuing to 
researchers, making sure that we first discuss their research needs and they 
similarly know their obligations.
Perhaps you would care to contact me and we could discuss this further and I 
could send you a copy of our archive Guide etc.
I would be very interested in hearing how other repositories have handled 
these issues and think that a meeting and session would be well worth while 
(and I would try to come along!).
Julia Sheppard
Contemporary Medical Archives Centre
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
Tel: 0171 611 8482
Fax 0171 611 8703
   

Ms Julia Sheppard
Archivist
Contemporary Medical Archives Centre
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
Tel:0171 611 8482
Fax:0171 611 8703
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