Yorkshire NO2ID press release
For Immediate Release
2/3/09
Doctors’ organisations and privacy campaigners are raising privacy concerns as patients medical details are about to be uploaded onto a centralised database. Connecting for Health is currently sending letters to people across the region via their Primary Care Trusts, informing them of ‘changes to your health records’.[2]
The changes (i.e. Summary Care Records) are presented as necessary and inevitable, and people are only being given a limited time to opt out (around 12 weeks from receipt of the letter), Privacy campaigners claim they shift control of health information from medical professionals to the State and will result in sensitive personal details being uploaded onto a centralised system accessible to hundreds of thousands of people - not just doctors, but anyone “required by statute” (i.e. government data-sharing), with a court order (e.g. the police) or “in the public interest”, which could include medical researchers.
John May from the British Medical Associations Patient Liaison Group said: “There needs to be a higher profile national information campaign to ensure everyone can make an informed choice about whether or not they want to be included.
“We also think it is important that opting-out is made easier. At the moment there’s no opt-out form in the patient information packs being sent to patients across the country.”[3]
James Elsdon-Baker North of England coordinator for the NO2ID campaign said:
“If people do nothing or fail to respond within the deadline, their personal details and potentially highly sensitive medical information, such as their last six months’ prescriptions, are uploaded onto a Summary Care Record. Once an SCR has been viewed, it will never be deleted from the system. We would encourage people to opt out now, as if they change their minds a records can always be created at a later date.”
Campaigners have set-up an information website www.thebigoptout.org where an opt-out form and further information can be obtained. [4]
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Notes to Editor
1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how it all fits together.
2) A copy of connecting to health’s information leaflet can be found here.
3) The Full BMA press release can be read here.
4) The Big Opt Out campaign was set up to protect patient confidentiality and to provide a focus for patient-led opposition the government’s NHS Care Records System. It is supported by NO2ID.
For further comment or immediate interview please contact:
James Elsdon-Baker ‘ North of England coordinator NO2ID on north@no2id.net 07817 605162
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
Yorkshire NO2ID press releaseFor Immediate Release 2/3/09
Tags: Database State, medical records, NHS
