Halt NHS record system

Conservatives and Lib Dems said they would either scrap or radically overhaul the NHS Summary Care Record (SCR) - a system which threatens medical confidentiality - an
issue on which NO2ID has been campaigning and this blog has covered several times - see here.

Photo: View across to Doverow Hill

Well despite the coalition's agreement saying "We will put patients in charge of making decisions about their care, including control of their health records", new Health Minister Simon Burns recently announced in a buried Parliamentary answer that uploads to the SCR system will continue! What's going on?

Well here is what NO2ID folk write: "Those who do not respond to a single letter about 'Changes to your health records' by obtaining, completing and delivering to their doctor a separate opt-out form will be taken to have given irrevocable consent for their personal health details to be uploaded and shared through the centralised system. Once viewed a single time, your record will never be deleted. Almost 30 million of these letters have now been sent, but research about to be published shows that some 88% of people sent a letter had either "thrown them away unread or could not remember receiving them". That's up to 26 million people who might not know that they were losing their one chance to make an important privacy choice."

No2ID are not saying there should never be such a thing as an electronic health record nor are they even asking for SCR to be scrapped immediately (though people would be safer if it was). They're just asking that all uploads be halted NOW, and that no-one else's personal health details be put at risk. Please consider writing to your MP - I've just sent Neil Carmichael a letter.

The simplest way to do this is by e-mail via http://www.writetothem.com/ and our request is simple - please write *now* and ask your MP to sign Early Day Motion 186 (see here).