Does participation in the study affect patients legal rights?
There are no special arrangements for compensation in the (unlikely) event that patients are harmed as a result of taking part in the study. But, whether or not patients take part, they will retain the same legal rights as any other patient treated in the NHS. All information collected in the study will remain strictly confidential in the same way as other medical records. The patient’s GP will need to be told that they are taking part in the study as he/she usually supplies their prescriptions. The information will be put into a computer and analysed, but individual patients will not be identified when the results are reported.
