The British Government has announced plans to change the way
the NHS stores medical records. Medical records are currently kept at your GP's
surgery or in the medical records depot of a primary care trust, if you've been
a regular hospital inpatient. These are in the form of good old fashioned paper
hardcopy and only duplicated electronically for temporary purposes; this is
because of the need for security. Medical records are classified as highly
confidential and the depot at my hospital is protected by a double door which
is permanently locked and only accessible by a special ID system or through a
reception desk. The records themselves come in folders which vary in size, but
can be big enough to need cardboard boxes to carry them. These then have to be
transported everywhere a patient goes; this was one of the duties of We The
Porters. It was quite a task, I can tell you! But we managed it; we got used to
it. That system worked. However, you can't stop governments from striving like
crazy to fix any thing that is not broken; they've decided to change the system
into something involving "Summary Care Records". This is a single
electronic database of your basic medical records which can be accessed from
any National Health Service carer in the country, see: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/records/healthrecords/Pages/servicedescription.aspx.
The idea behind it is that it will allow those carers access to records they
wouldn't otherwise get if you are treated at a location you don't normally
attend. The proponents of the scheme swear that the database is highly secure
and will never be accessed by any unauthorized person. However a large number
of access points will be needed; many thousands of hospitals, clinics, care
homes and GP surgeries from Land's End to John o'Groats, and probably a number
within each of them. Combined with this will be the fact that the access points
will be handled by overworked and underpaid NHS doctors and nurses who will
inevitably make mistakes. There have been many scandals along these lines, as
well as concerns that the government is planning on bringing in an "outside
interested party" to handle the records like contractors or service
partners. I have a lot of negative experience of this myself from being managed
by a private contractor and I can tell you that these entities are invariable
unethical, irresponsible and incompetent.
My advice is to opt-out of the scheme; and this can be done
easily by filling out a form. This is the NHS' official one, see: http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/optout/optout.pdf.
Unfortunately since this form was published, further outrages have emerged that
show the government is trying to worm us all onto some kind of database, even
if you return the above form, see: http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/it/caredata-will-allow-police-access-to-patient-record-without-informing-gps/20005800.article#.Uwh5uPl_uSo
(Thanks to Andrew Johnson and other members of the Cognoscence Yahoo group for
this information). This website has been set up to monitor and campaign on this
issue, see: http://medconfidential.org/.
Many doctors and nurses are also unhappy with the Summary Care Records system.
It flies in the face of centuries of medical ethics to remove the existing confidentiality
classification level without the patient's consent. The justification is that
the patient does give consent because the opt-out form is freely available, but
as "fmoreton", a member of the Cognoscence group points out, a lack
of response at all is interpreted as consent being given. Surely such a radical
change in policy instead should be an opt in.
I have a strange feeling that at some point a solution will be suggested to
make the system workable, internal microchip implants in the patients' bodies.
In fact we don't have to wait; such technology already exists and has been
successfully trialled, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-BmZJfKEg.
It would solve the security and access problems, and also overcome the changes
to confidentiality. After all, an implanted chip is probably more secure than
the current single remote database. All the authorities need is a public
willing to accept it in large numbers. The problem is that this kind of cyborg
technology is open to abuse because it can be adapted for other purposes, such
as financial, employment, security and almost any other purpose that could give
the authorities so much more control over the population than they currently
enjoy.
See here for
background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/neon-nettle-article.html.
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