Privacy campaign NO2ID [1] warns that today’s announcement of the cancellation of the ten-year old, £12Bn, database project, the National Programme for IT, will not necessarily remove one of its worst effects on the NHS – the destruction of medical privacy.

Despite both coalition parties’ manifesto promises to give patients control over their medical records, the uploading of sensitive personal information from GPs’ surgeries to central systems has continued over the last 18 months, without most people even aware of it [2].

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

We’ve heard a lot about this scheme being a financial disaster, but little about the privacy disaster. The execution may have been abysmal, but the principle was worse.

Giving the Department of Health central control of all medical records is still wrong, even if is done cost-effectively in future. Ministers need to do more than scrap the shambolic IT; they must restore the confidentiality of the doctor patient relationship.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against the database state. See http://www.no2id.net for more detail on the campaign’s aims.

2) See, for example: NO2ID release on Channel 4 story 16th August 2010: ‘Millions stay cheated of privacy as government hushes medical records scandal’
http://press.mu.no2id.net/2010-08/millions-stay-cheated-of-privacy-as-government-hushes-medical-records-scandal/

For further comment, or immediate or future interview, please call:

Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308

One Response to “NHS database has gone – but we want medical confidentiality back”

1. NO2ID Press Releases » The Great Database Robbery says:

   2011-12-04 at 15:47

   [...] Despite claiming skepticism of the Connecting for Health scheme, the new government carried on sucking up medical records into central control with barely a pause. See: http://press.mu.no2id.net/2011-09/nhs-database-has-gone-but-we-want-medical-confidentiality-back/ [...]