Elizabeth Dove (not her real name) contacted me when she found to her dismay that medical information she had given to her GP in confidence had ended up with council workers.
Now Jane Webb has emailed with a similar problem which seems to have no solution.
Continue reading "When data sharing ruins lives" »
At a breakfast with business leaders last week Jacqui Smith gave a presentation on ID Cards and sounded, well, humble.
She confirmed her confidence in ID Cards technology: a roll-out of the scheme will begin in Manchester later this year. At times her voice croaked.
She has had the arrogance that nearly always seems to go with ministership knocked out of her by the media coverage of her second-home claim and her husband's decision to put the cost of the two adult movies on her parliamentary expenses.
In her speech she didn't have the "we-can-do-what-we-like" haughtiness which characterizes some secretaries of state.
Continue reading "Now Jacqui Smith is ready to run the Home Office" »
Comments by journalist Richard Sarson at a Westminster forum this week highlighted some of the gaps between reality and the NHS's National Programme for IT.
Continue reading "Legalities of sharing medical data? Just share it " »
Without making any formal policy announcement, the Tories yesterday suggested - unattributably - that health records could be transferred to Google Health or Microsoft's HealthVault, or even Bupa.
Political parties sometimes check reactions to possible policies by giving tentative ideas to newspapers, then seeing what happens. It has worked fairly well - The Times had 119 comments on its article.
It published a follow-up on how ethics could sink the plan for Google or Microsoft health records.
Meanwhile Tom Brooks, a much-respected figure in health service IT, has given his views on the plan and gives the latest thinking on President Obama's healthcare IT proposals. Brooks is a semi-retired healthcare management consultant who still maintains close links with the USA.
Continue reading "Google and Microsoft to take over NHS records? " »
[
Summary of article on ComputerWeekly.com homepage]:
An NHS trust at the forefront of work on the £12.7bn NHS IT scheme has called in police after a breach of smartcard security compromised the confidentiality of hundreds of electronic records.
Patients in Hull have expressed their dismay that an unauthorised NHS employee has accessed their confidential records; and the local primary care trust, NHS Hull, says it is "shocked" at the breach of security by a member of staff who has since left.
Details of the breach emerged as health officials in London were, in an unrelated event,
telling journalists about the start of a roll-out of electronic records across London, as part of the National Programme for IT [NPfIT].
Continue reading "Police investigate NHS smartcard security breach as SCR launches in London" »
Patients who received a letter from NHS Hull saying that their medical
records had been viewed without authorisation by a former employees
have left comments on their
local news media's websites.Some of them say in effect: so what?
"So
many other patients' had their records accessed, including me, but you
don't see us crying to the Hull Daily Fail," said one.
Continue reading "Comments of patient "victims" of smartcard security breach" »