Do you think that doctor's and dentists should have to tell their patients if they have diseases like HIV?

No,why should they?It's none of the patients buisness. Go ahead and downrate me.

Notifiable Diseases

Notification of a number of specified infectious diseases is required under the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) 1988 Act and the Public Health (Control of Diseases) 1988 Act.
Doctors in England and Wales have "a statutory duty to notify a 'Proper Officer' of the Local Authority of suspected cases of certain infectious diseases." The Proper Officers are required every week to inform the Health Protection Agency (HPA) Center for Infections (CfI) details of each case of each disease that has been notified. This allows analysis of local and national trends. This information is collected by the Health Protection Agency.

Notification

Notification takes place via the appropriate form and includes:

* Patient's name, age, sex and home address
* The disease or form of poisoning being reported
* Date of onset of symptoms
* If in hospital also:
o Hospital address
o Day admitted
o Whether the disease was contracted in hospital
o Telephone or fax can be used in urgent cases

A fee is payable for notification.

List of notifiable diseases.

* Acute encephalitis
* Acute poliomyelitis
* Anthrax
* Cholera
* Diphtheria2
* Dysentery
* Food poisoning
* Leptospirosis3
* Malaria
* Measles
* Meningitis; all types
* Meningococcal septicaemia (without meningitis)4
* Mumps5
* Ophthalmia neonatorum
* Paratyphoid fever6
* Plague
* Rabies
* Relapsing fever
* Rubella
* Scarlet fever
* Smallpox7
* Tetanus
* Tuberculosis
* Typhoid fever8
* Typhus fever
* Viral haemorrhagic fever
* Viral hepatitis; all types
* Whooping cough9
* Yellow fever

The following communicable diseases must be notified to the Department of Health according to the notification requirements outlined in the sections Procedure for notification of communicable diseases (excluding HIV/AIDS) and Procedure for notification of HIV/AIDS .
The following list includes all communicable diseases (infectious and venereal) where reporting is specified under the legislation and regulations, as of July 2004.

* Anthrax phone
* Arboviral encephalitis (includes Murray Valley, Kunjin and Japanese encephalitis viruses) phone

* Barmah Forest Virus infection
* Botulism phone
* Brucellosis

* Campylobacter infection
* Chancroid
* Chlamydia (genital infection)
* Cholera phone
* Creutzfeldt Jakob disease
* Cryptosporidiosis

* Dengue fever
* Diphtheria phone
* Donovanosis (Granuloma inguinale)

* Gonorrhoea

* Haemolytic uraemic syndrome phone
* Haemophilus influenzae type b infection (invasive) phone
* Hepatitis A phone
* Hepatitis B
* Hepatitis C
* Hepatitis D
* Hepatitis E
* HIV/AIDS (use separate notification form)

* Influenza

* Legionella infection phone
* Leprosy
* Leptospirosis
* Listeriosis phone
* Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV)
* Lyssavirus infection (includes Rabies and Australian Bat Lyssavirus) phone

* Malaria
* Measles phone
* Melioidosis
* Meningococcal infection phone
* Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection
* Mumps

* Paratyphoid fever phone
* Pertussis
* Plague phone
* Pneumococcal infection (invasive)
* Poliomyelitis phone
* Psittacosis (ornithosis)

* Q fever

* Rheumatic fever (acute)
* Rickettsial infection (includes Typhus)
* Ross River Virus infection
* Rotavirus
* Rubella (congenital or non-congenital)

* Salmonella infection
* Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia)
* Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) phone
* Shiga toxin/Verotoxin producing E.coli (STEC/VTEC) infection phone
* Shigellosis (Bacillary dysentery)
* Smallpox phone
* Syphilis (all stages)

* Tetanus phone
* Tuberculosis
* Tularaemia phone
* Typhoid fever phone
* Typhus (Rickettsial infection)

* Varicella-zoster (chickenpox and shingles)
* Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection
* Viral haemorrhagic fevers (includes Crimean-Congo, Ebola, Lassa, Marburg viruses) phone

* Yellow fever phone
* Yersinia infection

yes

also the patient should tell them if they have HIV and other diseases as well.

No, and vice versa. When one takes universal precautions, it's no one's business - UNLESS it is pertinent to the medical care. For example, if one is seeing an Internal Medicine general practitioner as a primary care physician, one should disclose all medical conditions.

But the dentist? Not very applicable, is it?

If it's life threatening, then yes they should!