NHS patient confidentiality 'at risk' from central database

NHS patient confidentiality 'at risk' from central database:

BMA and privacy groups warn transfer of patients' records without consent could breach rights and damage trust in doctors
The confidentiality of millions of NHS patients will be put at risk by a new central database of medical records, privacy campaigners and doctors' leaders have warned.
The British Medical Association and privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch said the transfer of patients' records without their consent could breach patient confidentiality and damage trust in doctors. The information to be stored on the database includes drinking habits, NHS numbers, illnesses and reasons for treatment.
The files, which will not state the patient's name, can be accessed by researchers to assess the nation's health, analyse demand for services and improve treatment.
The details, referred to by the NHS as "patient identifiable components", will include information including diagnosis of cancer or mental illness, date of birth, postcodes and a patient's date of death.
GPs will be required to send the information as part of Everyone Counts: Planning for Patients 2013/14, a programme designed to extend the availability of patient data across the health service. The central database will be run by the NHS's Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "We may be witnessing the beginning of the end for patient privacy in the NHS. Forget putting patients in charge of their medical records, this new giant database will put NHS managers in charge of our most confidential information. Not only have the public not been told what is going on, none of us have been asked to give our permission for this to happen.
"To claim a database that includes your NHS number, date of birth and postcode is anonymous is simply not true. The risks of re-identification on a mass scale are very real and do not seem to have been taken into account at all."
A BMA spokesman said that the proposals were too broad: "Sharing patient data to help inform commissioning decisions is an important process that can help to improve NHS services, but it must only be done with strict safeguards in place. Patients must be given the option to opt out of any scheme that seeks to transfer identifiable information about them from their records to another source."
Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information at the NHS Commissioning Board, said that data sharing was vital for improving the NHS: "This does not put patient confidentiality at any risk. Data quality in the NHS needs to improve: it is no longer acceptable that at a given moment no one can be sure exactly how many patients are currently receiving chemotherapy, for example." Guardian