it's not a daft question
The ECS has a minimal amount of information in it and it can only be accessed with the patient's consent (unless they are unable to give it, obviously). So where's the fire?
Once your ECS has been accessed it cannot be deleted, only archived, for medico-legal reasons, so you can never go back. If you opted out at the start you would be okay but you wouldn't have that right later on.
If these records leak out, and lets just look at all the data-fails that occur around here, all of your prescriptions are public knowledge. It depends on whether or not The Sun on Sunday rates you as news, of course, maybe it's just your employer who has a quick shufti.
I believe the vast majority of El Reg readers would have been against the last government's ID card proposals. They would have recognised that the cards were not the real problem, it was the database behind it. Here is another database and this time it knows even more than just where you live.
I have a responsibility to keep my family free from this unwarranted intrusion. Am I endangering them by *not* providing an ECS? My wife, who co-signed the opt-out with me, is a GP. Her judgement was the records are not useful anyway.