New Tory bid to put your medical records up for sale – this time, without telling you
It seems the government is about to resurrect the privatisation of our medical records, but this time without even telling us.
The government review into the care.data scheme recommended the scheme be scrapped.
But buried in the report is a new scheme to sell our medical records to big corporations.
The government’s review proposes to allow medical records from your family doctor, (possibly including NHS Numbers, diagnoses, referrals, prescriptions along with postcodes and dates of birth) to be uploaded to a giant national database – but this time without telling us or asking for our consent.
One of the schemes to replace care.data is called the “Single GP dataset”. The government’s review into care.data proposes to send all patient records from family GPs to the central database without the express consent of patients. Once in the system, it can be “sold” to any customers of the ‘Health and Social Care Information centre”, including private companies.
The government buried this announcement on the day of the report into the Iraq War. It is hoping no one will notice this new land grab on our medical records.
As is now inevitable with such attempts at skulduggery, the plan has been exposed and there is a petition against it, which you can sign here.
ADVERT
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Hi Mike there isn’t a link, the word here is the same as all the other words. Could you give us the website info for the petition please?
Thank you!!
How very odd!
Fixed now.
You might want to take another look, it opens with your name already there. You probably need to log out before sharing the link. Something like that anyway.
Thanks for the heads-up. Better now?
Thank you Mike I have signed it! This has scared me, but I would rather know about it and i will pass it on!
Love your blog, but in this instance I fear you are wrong. The paper based NHS system was born in the 50’s and is clearly not fit for purpose in the 21st century. It is wasteful, inefficient and is the cause of many treatment delays and hiccups. I know because I have experienced it firsthand. The time to protest (and I will be at the front of the queue) is when it is put to tender, or when the records are put up for sale. Until then we should welcome this initiative, even if it does come from the nasty party.
I can’t agree, although I can understand your reasoning.
Putting the means to sell this material into the hands of Tories is inviting them to do it.
Corruption, corruption, corruption…
Signed and passed round family for signatures. They aren’t going to give up until they’ve privatised our NHS. Good job you don’t allow bad language Mike.
It’s still got your name on Mike, as if you’re logged in, however it doesn’t register a signature unless you click on the “Not you?” link, so it won’t be inflated by you apparently signing several times. Some people might think they’ve signed though, if they just click on the button automatically, as I almost did!
Wow. You try to share a link and it turns out to be really difficult!
I don’t think I’ll try to share a SumOfUs link again – too difficult. Which is a shame, really…
Here in Scotland Mike we have had our medical records “in the cloud” .for over 7 years.. In my case it has been very helpful both between GPs, out of hour services,and hospitals..and other health professionals including the Ambulance service. Trust the Tory’s to want to.sell the information off…..though
I genuinely don’t understand why people do not want a national database with your medical records???
It is sheer lunacy in this day and age, that if I fell ill the other end of the country, the medical professional who sees me won’t have access to my medical history.
How about taking off the tinfoil hat for a moment…
And you’re fine with the part where they sell your details on to a third party so they can – I don’t know – sell you health insurance?
hmm edward when one goes on hols you get insurance one also gets life insurance when applying you find that family one one used now is 100 pounds dearer they look and use it against you
he medical professional who sees me won’t have access to my medical history. that also be true has the likes of atos crapita maximus will have them not the hospital treating you that will be another charge the hospitals will have to pay to these carpet beggers
https://actions.sumofus.org/a/scrap-the-sale-of-our-medical-records?sp_ref=221294929.99.173667.f.548834.2&source=fb
Scrap the sale of our medical records 35,889 signatures
this is my addition to the posting of the link on Twitter: “Are there no depths that this government will not stoop to in order to make money out of the people it should serve?
Thanks for this alert, Mike!
The Tories will sell off anything to make a penny…. whether it belongs to them or not.
For anyone that didn’t do this last year and wants to keep their medical information private here’s the link to ‘opt out’ letter to give to your GP;
https://medconfidential.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/caredata_trifold.pdf
The Conservatives would sell anything to make money, be it right or wrong. Some things are fine to sell of course but not people’s medical records.
There is another aspect to the erosion of patient trust in confidentiality, which is that patients who care about their medical privacy will then withhold medical information as much as possible, leading to less of a medical history available in any form, and doctors acting on incomplete information.
Every time they have a go at this, I have added to my records the latest blocking code; but then they just wait and try and do it again. more surrepitiously. Those who instigate this don’t of course need to worry about it themselves, as it’s only for NHS patients, the vulgar herd (stock); not for those superior beings who have private medicine.
When a Tory says something is for your own good, you can be sure that it’s for the benefit of someone else with a profit motive.
hmmm doctors acting on incomplete information. yes has atos crapita maximus will have them they have to purchase each of them sorry it isnt for docs or nhs but those mentioned above