Despite ongoing concerns that the guidelines are leading to a failure among doctors to disclose information about vulnerable adults, such as drug- or alcohol-misusing parents, where children were involved, the BMA said that it had "no immediate plans" to reform the guidelines.
Dr Andrew Deardon, chairman of the BMA's community care committee, said that when a doctor was certain that a child was being abused, cases fell within the law straightaway.
But he said doctors often faced more ambiguous situations where they may be unsure if the patient was telling the truth, as often happened with vulnerable adults.
Doctors also often had no evidence that a child was at risk and were rarely in a position to get it without actually visiting a family, which they were unable to do without a medical reason.
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