A Cause For Concern?

[sandyRoe]

Fellow ABers,

I've just found out the government is trying to sell our medical records to anyone that wants them.

Companies will be able to buy information on all of us from the NHS’s new patient database — including everything from mental health conditions, sexually transmitted infections and diseases like cancer linked to your postcode, gender and ethnicity.

We’ve all been opted in to the scheme by the government without our knowledge. The government has said they will upload the data in a matter of just a few weeks. If we’re going to stop this, we have to act now.

Tell Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health not to sell our medical records.

http://action.sumofus.org/a/nhs-patient-corporations/2/3/?sub=taf

[Hypognosis]

@EDDIE

//It will not be possible to identify individual patients though. //

Date of birth gender and Postcode are going into this database. My postcode only contains about 5 houses and I'm a different generation to most of the neighbours. I could be indentified in just a tic.

We throw away phone books these days but there used to be a section where you could look up a poscode and find out what streets and street-numbers the code applied to. Last time I tried this, each poscode covered not much more than 30 houses.

All they need to do is strip down the postcode data to just the first three (possibly four) characters. This will be at the cost of reducing the 'granularity' of epidemiological studies to the level of either towns or less-specific, rural, regions (regional differences in health and reactions to medicines should be expected to be broad-brush anyway) but a shortened coding will improve confidentiality by lumping the individual in with hundreds or thousands of people in the same vicinity.

[boxtops]

This has just been sent to me. It indicates that even if you opt OUT, your medical records will be anonymised and still shared with HSCIC. Hmmm...

http://medconfidential.org/how-to-opt-out/

[emmie]

leaflets and info in GP surgeries has been out for ages about opting in or out, you should know about this already, surprised if you didn't.

[Zacs-Master]

Must admit, I knew nothing and will be opting out. No need for a public outcry, just opt out.

[boxtops]

It's not the not knowing about the fact that the central records are going to happen, emmie - you are right, that's been publicised for ages - it's the speculation now emerging that data will be sold on, anonymised or not, which it a different picture.

[Zacs-Master]

Telegraph from August last year claims they will be annonymised:

...The records will be anonymised but will include details of medical conditions, reports the Daily Mail...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10250585/Jeremy-Hunt-plans-to-give-anonymised-patient-medical-records-to-private-firms.html

Also, from Guardian last month
However, Mark Davies, the centre's public assurance director, told the Guardian there was a "small risk" certain patients could be "re-identified" because insurers, pharmaceutical groups and other health sector companies had their own medical data that could be matched against the "pseudonymised" records. "You may be able to identify people if you had a lot of data. It depends on how people will use the data once they have it. But I think it is a small, theoretical risk," he said

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/19/nhs-patient-data-available-companies-buy

[emmie]

i did say the other day i was worried about this, especially if you have physical or mental health issues, and some said you couldn't be identified, that is obviously not the case

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2552651/GPs-revolt-patient-records-Growing-anger-NHS-plan-harvest-private-data.html

[emmie]

boxy, that info has also been out in the public domain, i read that ages ago.

[viv38]

I will opt out.

[emmie]

this was from another aber

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1311236.html

[emmie]

i was concerned over the level of info available to anyone who wants it, so if you have or had a serious medical condition, how would that play say for your perspective employer, if they are able to look you up on some web site, especially if its mental health. Or for any type of insurance cover, not just medical, travel.

[beegeebee]

One would guess it's to enable the N.H.S. to sell the information on and keep the cash instead of it simply disappearing into the bottomless pit, called the Treasury.