In March the Government will, if you have not opted out of the scheme, start to upload your medical records to a new data base established by NHS England called care.data
I’m campaigning to delay the start of the Government’s care.data scheme, which will extract and sell large amounts of confidential NHS patient data, because I’m concerned about the risks to patient confidentiality. I’m also worried that the Government’s public awareness campaign is inadequate to allow people to make an informed decision. Extraction of this personal data is scheduled to begin in March, and I am particularly worried because people aren’t being given the choice to opt in to the scheme. Instead, consent is presumed and your data will be extracted unless you fill out a form to tell your GP you want to opt out.
The most important thing is that your personal medical data should belong to you, and you have the right to decide what use should be made of it.NHS England is coming to the end of a leafleting drop to notify people about care.data, which is part of what the government believes to be a comprehensive range of awareness raising activities. However, evidence is growing that levels of public awareness are very low and unfortunately the leaflet, which is not personally addressed, looks like just another piece of junk mail. I am concerned that people will not have read it or be aware of the campaign, and so they won’t be know that their personal data will be extracted and made available to commercial companies as well as NHS researchers.
To this end I’d like your help to find out whether or not people have been made aware about care.data. You can help me by filling in the short poll below about your experience with care.data and the government’s public awareness campaign. If you’d like some more information about care.data, you can read this article on our website or this one which appeared on pulsetoday.co.uk.
The most important thing is that your personal medical data should belong to you, and you have the right to decide what use should be made of it.
If you want to opt out now, you can do so online at https://www.faxyourgp.com/ or http://medconfidential.org/.