Government selling patients confidential Medical Records for £1.00 !!

[loz]

The government have no right to take what I told my doctor in confidence and sell it. Not that anything I have told my quack is worth £1 anyway but that's a different matter.
This info WILL get into the wrong hands, next thing we will have companies contacting us trying to sell us stuff based on what they have gleaned from this data.

And they will contact you regardless, they state that only date of birth and post codes will be used. 
Give me you post code and date of birth I can tell you from that information what your address is, the full name, who else lives at the property and for how long and their ages.   I can then find out your telephone number if it is not x-directory and not on the TPS list (even that can be overcome).

It is not looking so good now is it? 

[nichola]

One could be mistaken for believing this to be simply unbelievable but it is not.

People's private and personal health records are indeed being sold off and removing names is no guarantee that the identity of the person/s will remain anonymous or cannot be identified as I have been by coincidence reading just yesterday.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/28/code-practice-medical-data-vulnerable

[loz]

It has also been common knowledge since 2011 and muted prior, but has started to rear its head once more.


BBC New 2008  Scottish GP's selling info. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7749879.stm


Or visit the BBC New website and type in the search bar "Government selling patients confidential Medical Records" and worryingly as it is many news articles about our information being accessed.

[nichola]

What will be less well advertised is the right to "opt out" but one I recommend people take up.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/08/sale-nhs-records-condition-morally-dubious

[Menthol]

I now have an Ad blocker on my laptop but prior to this it was eerie how many of the ads on the right of my Facebook screen might be appropriate for me.

From buying in a supermarket to ordering on line to searching online, we are being tracked and sorted into categories ready for exploiting.

Opt out.

[loz]

Opt out?  you will not have the opportunity to opt out, even if you did what guarantee that it was adhered to? Also, I believe the opt out option is per practice not individual;  the first 100 GP practices have already gone ahead, now do you know if it was your GP practice is one of the 100?


I have no problem with collecting data for science and better health, but I do think that it should be dealt with more security in mind, why do they need Post codes?  why, so they can connect the data to the right person; this is the part that concerns me.




Menthol, remember you may have Ad blocker on your computer, but it is per browser so I have to use Ad block on them al, I use 4 different browsers, I rarely use IE, so I haven't put Ad block on that, but when I do use it I get all sorts of rubbish.

[Menthol]

Menthol, remember you may have Ad blocker on your computer, but it is per browser so I have to use Ad block on them al, I use 4 different browsers, I rarely use IE, so I haven't put Ad block on that, but when I do use it I get all sorts of rubbish.

I actually didn't know that Loz, so thank you for that info. I tend to use just the one browser anyway.

I'm asking my practice when I go today ........