NHS sale of patient records is a national outrage

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Plans for the NHS to SELL patient care records to big pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and research institutions are a national outrage.

Many professional commentators have already flagged the potential for the records to be used by private health companies to undercut NHS tenders for services– greatly accelerating the privatisation that nobody wants.

NHS England’s own risk assessment into the sale of patient records returned the deeply disturbing (but unsurprising) conclusion that patients ‘may lose trust’ in the confidential nature of the health service if their data is used without consent (under the scheme patients need to proactively opt out)

The document says the care.data scheme runs the risk of degrading patient trust in the NHS and making information vulnerable to hacking.

Now a new outrage emerges as it seems that the government has plans to bully and penalise GP practices that have a higher than average rate of opt outs.

Labour got wind of the plans and challenged the government to deny it – they couldn’t.

Health select committee member Rosie Cooper M.P. tabled three parliamentary questions on arrangements for practices where a large proportion of patients choose not to share their data.

Health minister Dr Daniel Poulter failed to rule out penalising GP practices with a higher-than-average proportion of patients opting out of new NHS data sharing arrangements.

In a written answer to Labour MP Rosie Cooper, Dr Poulter also refused to say what level of patient opt-out from the new care.data scheme would trigger an investigation into a practice.

Under the care.data scheme patients have the right to withhold their data, but they must make an appointment with their practice to do so. GP practices cannot choose to opt-out.

Asked whether practices would be penalised, who would investigate practices with a high opt-out rate, and at what threshold this would apply, Mr Poulter said:

‘NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre will work with the BMA, the RCGP, the Information Commissioner’s Office and with the Care Quality Commission to review and work with GP practices that have a high proportion of objections on a case-by-case basis.’

The Haze says:

This is yet more evidence that no aspect of the NHS is safe in the hands of this coalition that is seemingly incapable of leaving any aspect of the NHS free of neoliberal meddling and easy profits for big corporations.

Day by day our NHS is being dismantled and perverted into a series of profit making opportunities for a cabal of grubby rent seekers.

It is outrageous that patients can have their confidential care records sold on to a third party without their consent – NHS England’s own risk assessment said this risked poisoning the trust that patients have in the service.

It is a breach of trust that the NHS is insisting that patients cannot be identified when their own risk assessment says that they can be and many analysts have said that in combination with other data sources that identification could be relatively straightforward.

It is cynical and dishonest for the government to dress this scheme up as simply a boon for researchers (which in a few limited cases it may be) when they know as well as anyone that private firms will use the information to gain an unfair advantage over NHS tenders for services.

It is a national scandal that the government is trying to get anticipatory compliance from GP’s by threatening to ‘investigate’ those practices where patients opt out in numbers – clearly the intention is to stop GP’s from drawing this to the attention of their patients.

The whole scheme is a national disgrace and one that is being rolled out quietly in the hope of avoiding scrutiny.

Every right thinking should make a lot of noise about this and get everyone to opt out – that will sink this scheme once and for all.