TODAY WE carry yet another story about East Lancashire health authority bosses defending their decision not to release vital information to the Press.

Only a few weeks ago, a shroud of secrecy was thrown around a salmonella outbreak, and now the authority is refusing to talk about the second suspected meningitis case to occur at the same Burnley nursery within a month.

On one side we have patient watchdog leader Frank Clifford accusing the authority of being "overtly secretive" in releasing information via the Press.

He rightly points out that it is pointless to hide details of the effect on the victim, or where he lives.

On the other side, we have authority chief executive Richard Crail insisting that "in sensitive issues about local people's health, judgements have to be made when to go public."

He's also right of course.

But unfortunately Mr Crail seems to have difficulty in judging where to draw the line, preferring to reveal nothing rather than evaluate the case on its merits.

No-one, and especially not us, would argue the need for patient confidentiality, but there has to be a middle path to protect not only the patient, but the wider community.

Particularly in the case of illnesses such as meningitis, which needs instant medical attention, we would expect any responsible health authority to at least alert the public to the fact that there are cases in a certain area.

Yes, patient confidentiality needs to be observed, but the public has a right to expect to be kept informed if a lethal disease has struck in their town.

In this case, the health authority would not even reveal which town was involved, the age and sex of the child, to which hospital it had been taken and whether it was an emergency admission.

All these facts could have been disclosed without any breach of confidentiality.

But instead the health authority chose to tell us absolutely nothing.

Mr Crail sticks to the ancient principles of the nanny state, taking the view that he knows best and he will decide when people need to know something.

Our supposedly open and democratic society is still not perfect.

Secrecy still pervades important corners.

But we would expect people in Mr Crail's position to know better.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.