Medical records dumbed in landfill site

You would think everyone who handles medical records new the importance of keeping the info confidential. It seems that nobody has told Bolton PCT how to do this.

It has been discovered that they dumbed the medical info of over 3,000 patients in the normal rubish bin and they were found at a landfill site. The records were disposed of because they were being copied into a computer.

Making the data ’secure’ would have been easy. All you need to do is instruct anyone of those pesky admin staff people like me cant stand that they should shred the paper copy as soon as they have put the info into the computer. The fact that the records were being read by others that would not have needed to gain access to them if they were not being transferred to a computer only goes to show how much more electronic records are shared more than those kept purely on paper.

Be careful of the comment from Connecting for Health who claim electronic records will be more secure. The new system they are planning will make more info available to far more people and that will make it less secure

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7255463.stm

http://www.bolton.nhs.uk/

 

ChildProtectionLine, good or bad?

I only heard about this via the media, so I contacted the Scottish goverment about it. To my suppsrise I got a prity full reply (not often that happens!).

From what I could make out from the reply, there are good and bad points about it (some of the questions/issues are still not sorted).

Good. This is a single phone number that people can call if they are not sure who to call. The people on the other side of the phone will be able to direct people to the relevant department/service. That means if the SS (social services) are the best people to contact, then they will be directed there, if it’s the police, then they will be directed there. This should save time in getting things sorted and it makes sure the right people are contacted. It should (if it works OK) mean that children can be saved/protected more than they are just now.

BAD?. There are few things in life that are all good, and this is no exception. In theory there will not be a creation of a national database of accused, but with the goverment looking to creat things like the childs index, then it means there is a database be default. It also means that that anyone with access to the child index (SS, police, schools, local authorities, fire service, health authorities etc) will be able to find out the family are being investigated. Some of them should know, but why would the fire service ‘need to know’? In theory those accused will be able to clear their names, but that is easier said than done (dont forget that forced adoptions have increased 3 fold in some areas after ‘targets’ for adoption were brought in and the SS are famous for miscarages of justice and operate under secrecy to the extent the concept of a ‘fair trial’ is not a garantee). There is also no way of knowing if their file will be deleted if they are found not guilty (remember even children never charged or cautioned have a ‘police record’ and have their DNA stored nationaly). It could (even if this is not the aim) mean that a national network of accused is set up due to the ‘joined up’ thing the goverment is keen on.

There is also the issue about people own perecption of what is right. There are people that think you should never drink when you have children, so could they report people that fail to meet their own personal standards? The theory is, they accused would be investigated but as I pointed out above, this has it’s own problems. There is also the issue of double reporting. That should be sorted out quickly, but the fact that some others have been brought in, such as the SS, could mean it appears on their childs record available via the child index. Having never done drugs, I dont know if people seeking help are always reported to the police or SS. This new scheme seems to garuntee they would be brought in.

There is also a question mark about how you check people are drinking too much or taking drugs. Would all accussed be forced to have a edical exam to test for drugs or conditions that could be caused by drinking? Would they be required to have a breath test for alcohol on a random basis? With goverment having a ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ card for everything, would this be used against parents? Would children be asked about the acctivities their parents get up to? Would the accused be allowed to chalange claims made by others, such as neibours?

Would info get into the accused medical records? This is something the reply does not full answere. It is important that the choice about having the info stored in the medical record of the accused is only done with explicit consent, yet that is not a garuntee. Dont forget who will have access to this record. It is not just the GP, there are all the doctors/nurses and a large amount of admin staff at the practice (and future practices) who will have access. There are insurance comapines, employers can ask for it and with the goverment looking more and more at national records. I have managed to avoid some of these problems (cant do anything about insurance comapines or employers as the Scottish goverment could not care less about the level of access these scum have), but that was only after being treated like dirt by NHS Grampain and other PCTs, by me endgaering my health and by me not giving in to scum. I dont know of anyone else who has that protection/privacy, yet info could be getting put in their records without their explicit consent.

I fully support the idea of protecting children, but there is so much secrecy (this only protects doctors, SS, creates distrust, causes serious misscarages of justice and allows SS to do what ever it takes to get children. See links bellow).

There does seem to be better ways of helping drug users and people with other problems. The only problem is, this would need to be a truly confidential service and the goverment would ratehr spend money on paying locums £1000 a day or spend money on out of hour services to justify spending hundreds of millions (£20 billion in England) on national medical records that are less secure that the goverment claims. They could spend more money on having enough social workers, but again, they dont seem to fancy that idea. They seem to think it is better to set up a net work where neibour spies on neibour and thos who object to be spied on are simply told ‘nothing to hide. nothing to fear’. At the same time, they complain if they are monitoured talking to a suspected terrorist. I am not saying nothing should be done, but is a national phone number the best way to proect children or would it be better to help the people this number is targeting (suspected drug and alcohol abusers)?

Some links you might want to read:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/15/nadopt115.xml

http://www.forced-adoption.com/introduction.asp

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/05/nadopt105.xml

GPs incompetent or liars?

If you have read my blog before, you would proberbly guess I’m not a big fan og doctors/nurses and think far to many of them can not be trusted. It did however come as a suprise to me when I found out that even people who like to think they are in a postition of power dont trust them ether.

Take the case of  Sir David Freud (an investment banker hired by Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell). Mr Freud points out that it is “ludicrous” that medical checks were carried out by a claimant’s own GP for Claiming incapacity benifit. I wonder why that is. Is he saying the GP is not good enough at his or her job or is he saying they are liars?

Mr  Freud seems to want ‘independant’ doctors to carry out the medical examinations/assesements. That might seem fine to some, but that would only work if the patient was forced by the ‘independant’ doctor to disclose their entire GP file. With claimants being denied access to benifits if they say no, consent is not something the doctor could claim to have. It is not the first time the DWP has used the ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ crap to gain unrestricted access to GP files. Are they going to go back down that road again?

Lets not forget it would not only be the ‘independant’ doctor who gets access. There is all thei admin staff to worry about. How long will it be before the DWP demands that claimants allow access to their national record?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7223687.stm