Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Act 2023

15 Confidentiality of information

(1) A person mentioned in subsection (3) commits an offence if the person knowingly or recklessly makes an unauthorised disclosure of information that—

(a) has been obtained by or on behalf of the Commissioner for the purposes of exercising the Commissioner’s functions,

(b) is not, and has not been, in the public domain when the disclosure is made.

(2) A disclosure of information is authorised for the purpose of subsection (1) in so far as it is—

(a) made with the consent of the person from whom the information was obtained,

(b) necessary for the purpose of enabling, or assisting, the exercise of the Commissioner’s functions,

(c) made for the purpose of legal proceedings, whether civil or criminal (including for the purposes of investigating an offence or suspected offence),

(d) made for the purpose of assisting one of the following persons in exercising their statutory functions—

(i) Healthcare Improvement Scotland,

(ii) the Commissioner for Patient Safety in relation to England, which is an office established by section 1 of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021,

(iii) the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman,

(e) required by an enactment or rule of law.

(3) The persons referred to in subsection (1) are—

(a) the Commissioner,

(b) a member of the Commissioner’s staff,

(c) a member of the advisory group established in accordance with section 16,

(d) an agent of the Commissioner.

(4) A person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum,

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.