Government Plans to Upload Medical Records to Database without Patient Consent
Posted by IanWhickham on Monday, 04 December 2006 12:31:18
The Government plans to ride roughshod over the concerns of patients, their GPs, and spokesmen for the BMA and GMC by uploading private medical data to the planned centralized database of records, the NHS Spine, without consent from patients.
Last month it seemed that "implicit consent" was the key phrase, with patients having to opt out of their own accord (without being told beforehand what is going to happen to their data). Now it seems even that will be denied us. Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, directed GPs to forward any opt-out letters they may receive from patients wishing to have the 93C3 refusal of consent read code put on their records to Patricia Hewitt (Guardian). It is suggested on the Connecting for Health website that these patients will then have their requests refused (Sunday Telegraph).
As currently described I would certainly wish to withdraw from this project and have my records stored locally at my GP's surgery.
The events of these last two days have illustrated clearly that this Government has no concern for the sanctity of private medical data (if that wasn't apparent enough already). Goodness knows what they are going to come up with to do with everyone's details once they are on the Spine.
A centralized database is a good idea in principle, I agree with that. But it has to be acknowledged by the organisation(s) responsible for setting it up and maintaining it that there are inherent security problems with a database on that scale, and individuals' concerns regarding their records' confidentiality have to be respected.
There are three conditions I feel should have to be met before I will be willing to allow my records to be stored on such a system:
1. Consent for uploading should be explicit, not "implicit" - "implicit consent", especially with this sort of bullying regarding dissent, is no consent at all.
2. Sealed Envelopes should be implemented and stored locally at the GPs surgery as now (either on computer or on paper, or both), not on the Spine. The Patient should have the final say on what potentially sensitive information about them is uploaded.
3. There should be very strict regulations on access to the data from non-clinicians, enshrined in Law, that allow for strong punishments for persons caught (through whatever audit trail or similar is set up) accessing records illegally. These may include insurers, journalists, and even police and social services who have not gone through proper channels.
To find out more about opting out of the NHS Database, visit 'The Big Opt Out' website. If you do not agree with having your records put on a national database, for the reasons described above or others, print out the form-letter (follow the [b]Opt-Out Letter[/b] link).
The more people do this, the more strength GPs and the BMA have to resist the Government's proposal.
Ian
Spine, Privacy, NO2ID, Civil Liberties, NHS, Confidentiality, Database State, NPfIT