A new national database of confidential patient records
is being opened to access by NHS staff who need no professional
qualifications - despite official assurances that records will only
be accessed by specialists who are providing care or
treatment.
A document obtained by Computer Weekly under the Freedom of
Information Act also provides evidence that
NHS Connecting for
Health - which runs part of the £12.4bn
National Programme for IT [NPfIT] - has quietly decided to
weaken assurances given to patients about the confidentiality of
records.
Doctors are angry because they say that patients were given an
assurance that non-clinical staff would be unable to access the
national summary care record database which is being trialled at
NHS trusts in various parts of England.
The document from Bolton
Primary Care Trust, the first of the trial sites, says that
patients were mailed leaflets informing them about the summary care
record, a national database which will include the names of
patients, medication history, serious illnesses and allergies.
The leaflets being used in the "early adopter" trials at Bolton
and at other sites tell patients the benefits of having a national
database but also give them the option of "opting out" of having
their records uploaded. One gave specific assurance to patients
that receptionists will "not need to see your full clinical
records".
But after the leaflets were mailed to thousands of patients it
was discovered that receptionists at
Royal Bolton
Hospital's Accident and Emergency department had been looking
at the patient records, then printing them to add to the casualty
record card.
GPs involved in a trial of the NPfIT summary care record said
they did not want receptionists to see clinical files unless
patients were contacted again and told of a change of plan.
Bolton Primary Care Trust has decided to change the procedure at
hospitals to allow healthcare assistants - sometimes called nursing
auxiliaries - to view the care records database instead of
receptionists. But GPs say healthcare assistants usually have no
professional qualifications and are not clinical staff treating
patients.
Paul Cundy, spokesman for the
British Medical
Association's GP IT committee said the papers obtained by
Computer Weekly showed there has been an "erosion of the
confidentiality of patient records that we feared would happen". He
said that healthcare assistants were in essence "trained
receptionists".
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