Govt 'comprehensively ignored' advice over NHS data-sharing deal NHS Digital must put an immediate stop to patient data-sharing deal with the UK Home Office for immigration enforcement, MPs have said. The deal, which was put on official footing last year, allows the Home Office to ask the National Health Service for non-clinical information – such as date of birth or last known address – …
I believe that the GMC regulates individual doctors (maybe other health professionals too?).
If those doctors record confidential patient data into a system then they cannot be held responsible by the GMC for it being shared in bulk at an organisational IT level.
If it was left on an unencrypted USB stick or paper file by an individual doctor then GMC (and probably others) would have cause for complaint against them.
"If those doctors record confidential patient data into a system then they cannot be held responsible by the GMC for it being shared in bulk at an organisational IT level."
Absolutely they can. Any Data Controller who uploads sensitive data into any system is responsible for having adequate contractual clauses in place to protect that data.
If doctors don't have those clauses in place with the NHS then they shouldn't be uploading data.
Otherwise doctors could upload sensitive data to Facebook, and then claim innocence when Facebook share it with the world.
Any Data Controller who uploads sensitive data into any system is responsible for having adequate contractual clauses in place to protect that data.
This presupposes that the individual doctors are data controllers in a Data Protection (or soon GDPR) context. They are not; the data controller is the person responsible for controlling the data in the system, not the person responsible for collecting it. In this situation, this would be a nominated person in the organisation that holds the data, almost certainly a civil servant in a governmental department somewhere, well outside the jurisdiction of the professional body that governs the medical profession.
The BMA disagrees with you:
"GP practices are data controllers for the information they hold about their patients. Most practices will have 'data processing' arrangements with third parties, for example IT system suppliers carry out a wide range of clinical and administrative processes within the practice, but it is the data controller who retains responsibility for compliance under the Act."
And also NHS England:
"GPs or GP Practices are “data controllers” and have a legal duty to ensure all processing of personal data of their registered patients complies with all eight data protection principles of the Data Protection Act, Failure to do so carries significant risks.
"A data controller may assign some or all of the responsibility for data processing to another person, but their overall legal responsibility cannot be delegated or contracted out."
Most of the data was slurped along time ago, I would imagine. There's not much the GPs can do about it retrospectively.
NHS data is a murky business. GPs are mostly private contractors, hospitals are mostly private trusts, other service providers are increasingly commercial organisations and the government just provides the money. Exactly what lawful business any of these have exchanging data on patients isn't immediately clear to me since there is seemingly no informed consent involved.
Heaven forbid that people might actually have to have a right to be in the uk and paid for the healthcare before they are treated. Nowhere else on the planet hands out free healthcare regardless, I live in Europe and the first thing they ask for is your insurance details. No insurance, better get your chequebook out.
Out of interest, is the number of pieces recommended in swizerland different to the number of pieces recommended in the UK?
When my sister snapped a ligament in her knee in france, the french doctors were adamant that she needed very expensive surgery (on her health insurance, as she lives in france) before she would ever walk again. Not entirely trusting their (essentially working for comission) doctors, she flew back to the UK and got a second opinion. The NHS told her she would be fine with physio as long as she didnt try any extreme sports.
She went with the NHS recommendation, and has been fine since.
The damage was so great that even a novice radiography would be able to spot it. Being a scientist turned geek I naturally researched what they did and it appears I received the current "gold standard" treatment.
I know someone who did what sounds like your sister's injury (ACL?) who was told to wait and felt it set her sports back and she almost evangelises ACL reconstruction.
> the french doctors were adamant that she needed very expensive surgery
> The NHS told her she would be fine with physio as long as she didnt try any extreme sports.
Sound's like to me the French doctor's beginning position was to restore the knee back to full (or as near as possible) functionality so the patient would not be limited in their future endeavors. Getting it back into mint condition so it can be used just like a new one.
The NHS' beginning position was that they were happy recommending limiting the patients future endeavors and fixing it just enough to get you home.
I know which one I think has the patients best interests in mind.
You do not want someone suffering from Bird Flu Version 2, SARS Version 2, or Ebola to avoid seeking medical help because they believe their name and address will be passed on to the immigration authorities. That way lies uncontrollable epidemics. It's bad enough already with treatment-resistant TB and STDs.
There are also quite a few women who would not want anyone to know they had sought medical advice. Plenty of women with unclear immigration status comes from cultures where taking charge of their own reproductive health is an offence that comes with severe punishments - and that includes women from Northern Ireland seeking abortions. Information sharing increases the risk of such information getting to places it shouldn't and endangering lives.
Patient-Doctor confidentiality is important, and any attempt to dilute it should be viewed with great suspicion.
<q>You do not want someone suffering from Bird Flu Version 2, SARS Version 2, or Ebola to avoid seeking medical help because they believe their name and address will be passed on to the immigration authorities. That way lies uncontrollable epidemics. It's bad enough already with treatment-resistant TB and STDs.</q>
Not forgetting management of many chronic illnesses. A regular appointment with the nurse and a repeat prescription for an inhaler for asthma has to go a long way before it costs close to a single 999 call and an ambulance to the A&E.
re AC
Do you really think that uncontolled, uncontrollable immigration (that horse bolted years ago) will not actually lead to epidemics and issues that you speak of, that it will only improve general health or reduce endangerment to lives?
Personally, i'd far rather such immigrants, bringing serious medical issues with them, went through the correct immigration procedures. Hell, they may even be treated, for free, even if they're refused immigration.
If a Govt is not allowed to enforce it's own regulations they why not simply scrap them?
Moot point anyway, just give it time.
This data sharing won't reduce illegal immigration, it'll just worsen the health of illegal immigrants.
Which from a Daily Mail perspective is a win-win. If there was no illegal immigration they'd have one fewer trope to stoke the passions of the morons who consume their dismal output.
This data sharing won't reduce illegal immigration, it'll just worsen the health of illegal immigrants.
And even if it did help with immigration enforcement the harm from diluting doctor/patient confidentiality is too great. The Nazz poses a false dichotomy in any case. Stopping NHS data sharing with the HO doesn't preclude immigration enforcement (whatever ones opinion on the appropriate level for this), it merely blocks one (possible) intelligence source
Do you really think that uncontolled, uncontrollable immigration (that horse bolted years ago)
Put down your tabloid newspaper and go and look outside. Look at how we are not being overrun by "evil forriners" coming over here to simultaneously take our jobs, our benefits, our health care, our women, our food, water, the very air we breathe...
The EHIC is for visitors of up to three months, you get the treatment at the same cost as residents of that country. If you're living there it doesn't apply.
By the way, if you look at the guide you can find quite a lot is free in many countries. Saying "nowhere else hands out free healthcare" is not quite true.
> Government acts based on expert advice - now that would be news.
The Government often acts on experts advice.
Of course, the way they choose which experts to provide advice is by first finding those experts who already agree with the governments position before appointment.
If it were a business it would have gone bust long ago. At its best it's great and we all hope that when we need it we're not the one on a stretcher waiting 12 hours without food or drink before being seen but I recently missed the "treatment for cancer patients 31 day target".
The only fix anyone has is more government money (government money is your taxes, do I see you voting to pay more?).
NHS employs approx 1.5 million (including administrators and other non-medical staff) about one in 20 of the working population. Immigration in recent years has been running at about 300,000. That's a city the size of Sheffield every 2 years with 2 major hospitals, 100+ GP practises, approx 300 GPs. Have we built new hospital capacity at that rate? Have we been increasing the number of GPs at that rate? (Indications seem to be that the total number of GPs is falling year on year).
Much is made of the fact that some immigrants are doctors and nurses. To maintain the ratios one out of every 40 immigrants must fill a job in the NHS (inc. non-medical) - is that the case? Is approx one out of every 250 immigrants a doctor? Is a further one out of 80 a nurse?
The NHS could make checks on entitlement to free care but prefer to treat all-comers including EU health tourists - get it free in NHS rather than pay elsewhere in EU because the UK government will pick up the tab. The medical community protest that it would mean more admin & bureaucracy for them and it's "not their job to police immigration policy".
Despite alerting the hospital that our injured visitor was not British or EU and needed an interpreter the hospital made no steps to charge. The resulting growing waiting lists upset the electorate so we'll pressure the government to stump up still more... My proposal: For every £1 an NHS trust recovers from an unentitled foreigner Government allocates them an additional £10.
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