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Right to Information about his or her Health| SPAIN
| GENERAL OVERVIEW | BIOMEDICINE CONVENTION | EU MEMBER STATES | TYPES OF PATIENT RIGHTS LEGISLATION |
| 1. Spanish health law provides the right to information about his health as a right independent of the right to informed consent. Patients have the right, by virtue of any intervention in the scope of their health, to know any information available on their health, unless otherwise provided for by law. As a general rule, the information has to be given orally. 2. The person who has the right to be informed is the patient. Members of his family or persons tied to him for de facto reasons must also be informed to the degree that the patient permits this either in an explicit or a tacit manner. The patient has to be informed, even in cases of incapacity, in a manner that is adjusted to their possibilities of comprehension. Moreover, the legal representative must also be informed. When the attending physician is of the opinion that the patient lacks the capacity to understand the information due to his physical or mental state, the information must be made available to family or persons tied to him for de facto reasons 3. All persons have the right not to be informed. 4. The Patient Rights Law establishes an exception to the right of information. This exception is called the state of therapeutic necessity and is also known as the therapeutic exception. The right of the patient to health information can be limited by the accredited existence of a state of therapeutic necessity. Therapeutic necessity can be defined as the power of the physician to act professionally without informing the patient in advance when the knowledge of the patient’s actual situation could cause serious harm to his health, due to objective reasons. When this situation arises, the physician has to make a motivated note of the circumstances in the clinical record and he has to communicate his decision to members of the patient’s family or to persons tied to him for de facto reasons. |