Opting Out Of Your Private Medical Data Harvesting By Government

GP practices nationwide will be required to supply patients’ personal and confidential medical Information, on a regular and continuous basis, to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), once the Government announced suspension of the nation-wide roll-out of the Care.data process has concluded.

The government's reasoning for the postponement of the roll-out does not add-up in the fact they claim patients don't understand the collection of their personal and private medical data, the reasons for it, and the use to which that data will be made by the NHS, Government and private organisations willing to pay for the information.

The fact is that the public uproar about the proposed selling of the medical records to insurance companies, private healthcare companies (American, European and English); shows they fully understand exactly what the harvesting of medical records is all about!

But simply Opting Out of the NHS Database will not in itself stop the downloading of your personal medical records to Care.data! For that to happen you must opt-out as detailed below!

Below is a document issues by one GP medical practice, concerned for the protection of their patient's medical records:

GP practices nationwide will soon be required to supply patients’ personal and confidential medical Information, on a regular and continuous basis, to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).

This information will be extracted from the practice in a form that can identify you (i.e. it will not be anonymised), and will include your NHS number, date of birth, postcode, gender and ethnicity.

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, GP practices have no choice but to allow the HSCIC to extract this information. The programme, called care.data, is administered by the HSCIC using software and services provided by a private sector company (ATOS).

The data will be stored on HSCIC national servers and not on GP systems. The HSCIC will administer the data, and states it intends to use it “for planning health services and for research”.

This is known as “secondary uses” of your medical records.

Once the data has been extracted, the GP practice is no longer the data controller for that information, and cannot control or protect in any way how that information is used, shared or who has access to it.

The HSCIC will be the data controller for your uploaded information and will have total control over it.

Although GP practices cannot object to this information leaving the practice, individual patients and their families can instruct their practice to prohibit the transfer of their data, i.e. you have the right to opt-out.

Opting-out will have no effect on the medical care that you receive either from your GP surgery or from anywhere else within the NHS or private sector.

Opting-out will have no effect on your GP surgery and the way it provide services.

If you do nothing, i.e. you do not opt out, then your medical information will be extracted and uploaded to the HSCIC.

You will still need to opt out as detailed to prevent care.data uploads even if you have already explicitly opted out of the NHS Database (The Summary Care Record).

The NHS Database opt out will not prevent care.data uploads.

There is a lot of information available about care.data, which you may choose to refer to before you decide on whether you wish to opt out or not.

Web-links to this information are included in this factsheet .

How do I opt out?

Fill in the opt-out form below and return the form to your GP reception (or hand it to the doctor or nurse that you are consulting with). It can be downloaded and printed off via the Unionsafety E-Library Database Use search category 'Data Security' to select the document.

Information about care.data

NHS England/HSCIC Patient information booklet (“How information about you helps us to provide better care”) http://tinyurl.com/cdptinfo Patient “FAQs” http://tinyurl.com/cdptfaqs Web site: http://www.nhs.uk/caredata
EMIS National User Group Patient information booklet http://tinyurl.com/nugcdinfo Web site:  http://tinyurl.com/nugcdweb
medConfidential Patient leaflet http://tinyurl.com/mccdinfo Web site: http://medconfidential.org/

Opt-out from secondary use of patient identifiable data

Please could you add the relevant “electronic flags” (read codes 9Nu0 and 9Nu4) to my/our medical records, in order to ensure:

• that personal confidential information is not uploaded from the GP records to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) via the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) or other means
• that personal confidential information gathered from any health and social care setting is prevented from leaving the HSCIC

I/We understand the implications of this request:

• that it will not affect the medical care that I/We receive either from the GP surgery or from anywhere within the NHS or the private sector
• that this refusal does not in any way prohibit the GP surgery from sharing my medical information with other NHS and private services, where necessary, to provide effective clinical care
• that I/We can change our mind at any time about this refusal
• that I/We will inform you if we subsequently decide to opt back into this system

The document continues with a table in which you can write your name and those within your family for whom you have guardianship, e.g. children, elderly infirm adults.

Source: medConfidential / NHS

You can also download from the E-Library Database a copy of a document answering frequent questions about Care.data issued by medeConfidential. Use search category 'Data Security'

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