care.data is dead
long live care.data
The realisation of some digital health benefits within the NHS might have been delayed by the extra requirement for consultation on a new consent model governing the use of patient data. A new consent and opt-out model could help clarify constraints that apply to data use in the NHS and promote new digital health initiatives. …
the usual load of old bollocks. the NHS think that removing name and address whilst leaving NHS number in anonymises the data.
then they offer to pass a law that threatens to really really slap someone's wrist ever so hard if they do a join with the NHS number table.
these people think we're thick.
The CIO the Minister for Health and the CEO of the company that purchased the info all go to Jail (and not a cushy country club either) for 5 Years after Good behaviour.
or you could just make them live in an A&E ward for 3 Years. wearing Hospital gowns eating Hospital food and using bed pans and urine bottles. and never going out of the ward unless it was for a weekly rectal exam.
Should make people take notice of security.
As an NHS analyst I can tell you you are talking utter shite, as someone who actually needs access to patient record level data to ensure patients are getting the best possible outcomes and not getting out of hospital the wrong way it is now nigh on impossible to get hold of data with NHS no in clear unless you have a very clear right to view for direct patient care or for contract challenges. In fact even just getting hold of fully pseudonymised non PI data is seemingly nigh on impossible as it is all now tied up in IG hell.
Using NHS number as a unique identifier makes a certain amount sense - it's not data that can EASILY be linked to the individual. However, to do the job properly they need to do better: proper one way pseudonymisation so that records can be linked but no-one can find the identity of the patient
You can bet Google are relinking/reassembling the anonymised UK Patient data they got hold of 'for research purposes only' back to the Calendars and Gmail accounts of the UK users they have.
Google Calendar:
Patient X.
Redditch Alexandra Hospital Appointment 2pm August 20th 2014 Radiography? Check.
Dr X. Check.
"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. We can’t allow the government to sneak out the same medical record data scheme under a different name.
Our community successfully fought the original care.data scheme. Thanks to the power of our community we rose up and forced the government to backtrack and ultimately scrap the scheme. Now the government is hoping to flog off our medical records, but this time under a new name and without those pesky safeguards. We have to act to stop the privatisation of our medical records"
Change.org seems to be worrying!