It's Day 4287 in the Big Brother Health Service....
The government has spent £20 billion of your taxpayer money on a useless, ineffective and insecure computerised NHS IT system. It has been a top down imposed disaster from day one led by the aggressive and obnoxious Richard Granger- truly a man for the world of new Labour bullshit projects. The fight back against this dangerous project is growing.
If you as a patient want your medical records uploaded onto a leaky information database do nothing.
If you as a patient want anyone and everyone to have access to your medical records then do nothing.
The government has set up the system on the assumption that everyone thinks the NHS spine is great and safe and trustworthy and so why would anyone raise any objections to it.
So if you think that the Government has no concept of confidentiality, and no idea about data security then you need to ACTIVELY OPT OUT.
If you want secure medical records, kept safely then write to your GP and ask him or her to add these codes to your medical records.
• 93C3 Refused consent for upload to national shared electronic record
• 93C1 Refused consent for upload to local shared electronic record
• 9Nd1 No consent for electronic record sharing
If enough of us do this then the whole of the CfH strategy will be scrambled, and the government will have egg on its face. More importantly doctors and patients will be able to communicate confidentially with each other.
Trial uploads have already happened in Bolton. They will be coming to other towns and cities very soon.
Dr Rant has already asked his GP to add these codes to his records.
If you need more convincing the links below give excellent evidence:-
Ross Anderson excellent article in February BJGP
The Big Opt Out
Dr Neil Bhatia and his colleagues. A Caldicott guardian who takes his responsibility to patient confidentiality with due seriousness.
Remember also that “prominent people” such as senior politicians will not have their data uploaded onto the NHS spine. Apparently they are worried it might fall into the wrong hands.
So are we at the Ranting House.
So too should you be!
OPT OUT NOW.
Dr Rant
Dr Cardigan
Dr Blue
Dr Brown
Rev Dr Green
Dr Mustard
Mr Orange
Dr Pink
Dr Purple
Mr Salmon
Dr White
Mr Beige
Ms Scarlet
Dr Informed
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16 comments:
Dr Rant- the spine is far WORSE than you make out - once all our clinical details have been uploaded to the spine the Government will SELL this info to the big American corporates- those will expensive conditions will not get health care- those who are healthy- mclunkjaws lot will stop at nothing to deliver their american pals a nice big fat wadge of cash- so i agree- PUT A NOTICE IN YOUR SURGERY URGING ALL YOUR PATIENTS TO OPT OUT
A centralised hub of patient details is a good idea, but it needs to be implemented securely.
I live between two cities and have a nightmare over seeing a GP - since my records have to be transferred between surgeries.
Providing the government can get its act together and get some decent security in place, then I'm happy for different surgeries, hospitals and health centres to be able to access my records.
Thank you Doc.
I took the first of those three steps early last year (also included a copy of the GMC's advice on the legal position docs would be in by uploading the info).
However, I didn't even know the other two possibilities existed. It will be taken care of tomorrow morning.
Fucking political class - waste my time; waste my GP's time; and force ME to waste my GP's time.
Last time I went to see my GP I mentioned to her that I was following events re the GP contract. Oh my goodness me - first time I've ever seen her get really animated about anything.
She was resigned to it though - they just do whtever the hell they want
As a GP, patients carrying their own records on a smart card would be more useful to me than 'centralised records'.
To be honest though, the number of occasions on which lack of access to a patient's prior records has seriously impaired my ability to look after them is vanishingly small.
A problem that requires a £20bn solution it most certainly is not.
Now, elderly care, cancer care, maternity care, mental health sefvices, drug treatment etc etc etc well be such problems.
as ever dr rant comes round to the view that fellow no one was advocating 6 to 12 months ago eventually, good to see you catch up
There's a strong defence of the summary care record and NHS spine in March BJGP. Ross Anderson's article has really upset the bigwigs at Connecting for Health.
Given my total distrust of this government and all its works, I tend to think Ross Anderson has the more accurate assessment of the situation.
The possibility of a typo on a code frightens the hell out of me, labelling me as eg an alcoholic when in reality I'm eg a diabetic. The problem with computerised records is that normal common sense seems to go out of the window - "It's on the computer, so it must be true", irrespective of how much you try and complain otherwise.
I opted out over a year ago and I would encourage everyone else to do the same.
Hi there - I'm sorry, this is a very basic question from an ordinary punter, but does 93C3 mean that your records won't get put onto the IT system at all? I see the many positive benefits of this, but are there downsides? Am I going to hobble down to A&E as an old age pensioner and be told "Sorry love, computer says no treatment?"
No, opting out of the Summary Care Record will not prevent you from getting any NHS treatment that you need, either from your GP, a hospital A&E or a specialist.
Dr Rant is right to be worried about the security and confidentiality issues inherent in the upload of the summary care record to the national spine, however there are risks which occur when vital information can not be obtained.
Dr Rant may feel that "the number of occasions on which lack of access to a patient's prior records has seriously impaired my ability to look after them is vanishingly small", however many patients are seen by other bits of the NHS when lack of information is a real problem.
Having spent 15 years in A&E I can describe multiple times when not having the patients medical history or allergies could put the patient at risk. If you are lucky you get a quick note scribbled by the GP (which you try hard to decipher) - but often not even that & to be able to see the tests and prescriptions done by the GP perhaps only a day or two earlier could make the difference between appropriate management and potential disaster.
I am ma supporter in principle of the NPfIT but a frequent critic of the way in which it has been managed and delivered.
“93C1 Refused consent for upload to local shared electronic record”.
This does not work and according to the ICO you can’t stop this. I tried this in Morecambe where 4 practices were sharing the medical records of patients and allowing access by staff at any of the practices. To ‘stop’ this upload, I had top deregister from the NHS. All the practices are separate, but form a ‘group’. Strictly speaking this means that is all practices were put into ‘groups’ (and it could be argued the NHS is a ‘group’ of health workers), you as a patient could not control access. In 2002 it was agreed by doctors (GPC etc) that patients could place restrictions on access to electronic records held on remote servers (this is the only way multiple practices can access records) so that staff at other sites and staff within the practice could not access information. I was not allowed to control any information because as a patient you have no right to control how or where data is stored (that is according to the ICO)
“9Nd1 No consent for electronic record sharing”.
Again, nice theory, but in reality you can not control sharing via electronic records. My current GP has allowed me to do this and has even agreed not to allow admin staff and other health workers access to the records (they are held on paper and kept separate from other records). This means if I was ever to be issued with Viagra, get raped, catch an STD/STI or have piles etc, the admin staff and nurses would never know unless I asked for them to be told or I told them myself. I am one of the few people in the UK (there are only about 4 at my practice) where that is allowed.
The fact CfH have misled patients about access and the fact that even the doctors promoting it have misled patients about access/sharing (I did bring this up with the GMC, but they have refused to approach the doctors to find out why they withheld information about others having access or the extent of what is to be uploaded, for example, medications used in a termination can be uploaded and made available for 6 months to doctors, nurses treating the patient and also made available to their admin staff, including receptionist). That is something I am not making up, I asked Dorset PCT about this and they implied (via email) that this was the case.
You can't fully 'opt-out' of the national database. In the future, the vast majority of treatment/test, such as blood test, xrays, cancer screening (this is already the case in Scotland where cervical smear test are held on anational database that was not as secure as it should have been for some time), why you are seeing a therapist (being an alocholic, drug user, abuse victim etc), referals for operations and sharing of info with your GP by the hospital etc, must be done via NCRS. If you dont want that to happen, the alternitive is to ether go without treatment or go private. Unless CfH have changed their plans since I got their email, there will be no alternitive for clinitians.
"If you are lucky you get a quick note scribbled by the GP (which you try hard to decipher)"*
A £12 billion insecure data spine is not really necessary for this kind of situation.
There is a thing called the 'telephone' which can be used to call the GP surgery. Should a verbal report not be enough, then there is a newfangled thing called a 'fax'.
If you time how long it takes to log in to the system and access the medical records, I suspect the old fashioned technique will be no slower. (As we have posted before, NHS IT is appears to all have been written by a spotty 12 year old in BASIC on a ZX Spectrum).
* This used to bemuse me as well as an A&E doctor. Then I did GP and found out why: sick patient, on your own, ambulance pitches up, only a few seconds to write a letter. I now fax a typed letter from back at the surgery if at all possible.
I opted out in Dec 2006 but have just discovered that my name,dob & address have been uploaded. Reports & treatments carried out at hospitals ARE uploaded to Spine and patients have no choice in the matter and the personal details uploaded from the GP surgery provide the basis for this duplicitous data matching. No wonder the Minister for Health agreed that patients could opt out at Practice level in 2006 because it didn't make much difference. I was sceptical about all this & gave the surgery a "poste restante" with a false telephone #. My advice is to give conflicting lies whenever possible & have a word with your pharmacist who can choose whether to upload prescription details or not. THE OPT OUT AT THE GP's IS POINTLESS.
Opting out at GP level is a joke; it just means that the hospitals, dentists,chemists et al load up any tests or operations you attend for plus any details sent by the GP.
Professor Anderson in 2006 thought that name,DOB,address & telephone No. would be uploaded from surgery level.I Notified the GP of a "change of address" & "change of telephone No." before the upload commenced & guess what I've received invitations from various hospitals to have tests sent to my "poste restante" address.Ross Anderson was correct. The time is not far away when we'll be confronted with a quid pro quo - accept the system or deny yourself treatment.I've written to primary care trusts,hospitals & clinics seeking information on "Spine" but I am either ignored or fed senseless waffle - smoke & mirrors. I plan to be living in France soon where the individual takes responsibility for keeping their own medical files & the money is spent on hmmmm oh yes patients.Eh bien tout le monde, bonne chance, bon courage et bonne tenacite.
Cordialement
I'd be grateful if any doctor would advise about opting-out in the following situation?
I'm registered at a practice in one city but have been having consultations (as a temporary resident) at a GP surgery in another city where I am staying temporarily.
If I want to opt-out - should I send the codes to my 'permanent' surgery or do I need to send them to both GP practices.
Cheers
Jamie
Both.
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