Suspected Alcoholics to be targeted?

I came across this bird brain idea the government has come up with to ‘help’ alcoholics. The idea is that if you are an alcoholic you must get help or have your benefits cut.

 

So what is the problem? First of all, how do you show the person is an Alcoholic? Are they going to randomly spy on people to see how much they buy or are they going to have doctors/nurses and other health workers spy on patients for them? Will they go through the patients electronic record held on a national database to see how many units of alcohol people admit to drinking or to see if they have problems that could be associated to alcohol? Will they check phone records to see who has been calling Alcoholics anonymous?

 

This is yet another example of where the government says it wants to help people, yet at the same time simply ignores the underlying problems people have and the fact that people that have problems can not easily gain access to a truly confidential service. If you tell your GP then you in affect allow every doctor/nurse you see know, admin staff get to find out, it gets put on a national database, insurance companies will find out (… the ombudsman sided with the company, when an applicant rightly declared she did not drink alcohol on an application form, but neglected to state that she was receiving psychiatric help for a drink problem, nor that she had formerly attended Alcoholics Anonymous). if you want to work with children you might have to declare it and then there are things like the child Index which could see the information shared with Social Services and Schools if someone thinks there is a ‘concern’.

 

To make things worse, there is the issue of what if they are wrong? We all know doctors see themselves as Gods who are always right and even if you do get to prove they are wrong, the original claim that you are an alcoholic is kept on file and is a stigma that will follow you around for the rest of your life. What if it gets lost? If the goverment realy cared about helping people with problems, they would spend money on allowing them access to a truly confidential and barriers, such as insurance companies being able to find out, would be removed. Instead they have decided to take another step into making the UK a surveillance society.

 

 

Links bellow

BBC news story

Now BUPA is to be sent patient data

It seems that some people, or rather NHS trust, are still determined to share patient data. Not only have they decided to go with the implied consent model to share patient data, they have only given patients 15 days to opt-out of it. The idea is to make some patient data available to nurses working for BUPA as ‘health coaches’. The idea is patient data will be sent to BUPA so that their nurses can help patients with long term health problems such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease. It does not stop their however, the service is being offered to everybody in the West Kent area in an attempt to reduce unnecessary attendance at GP practices and at A&E departments (I thought that is what NHS Direct is for). There is no doubt that it would benefit some patients if they were referred to a ‘health coach’ but to send patient data to others without seeking consent (implied consent has been shown to be unreliable) is, in my view, just another step in the NHS plan to make people get used to the idea of sharing private information with other people to the point we will know no difference. As always, relevant links below

e-health insider

The register

List of NHS data breaches

Just a quick note to give a link to a list of data breaches by NHS areas/regions (England only). I am not sure if this is all data breaches.

Link to word doc: http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00090/dataloss_90125a.doc

Link obtained from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/catalogue-of-nhs-data-losses-makes-shocking-reading-1035166.html

Organ donor plan to be rejected by scientists?

It would seem that the goverment might not be able to go with their implied consent idea for organ donation.

Implied consent is something that I am against. Taking an organ from someone on the assumption that they would want it taken is not good and lacks ethics.

With expressed consent the doctor and family know for a fact the patient wanted it, with implied consent there will always  be the possibility that the person did not want it. Implied consent has been shown time and time again that it does not work, so why rely on something that is serously flawed? With implied consent there are also legal problems that might come up. What happens if one mamber of the family says yes and another says no? With implied consent not being reliable, would taken the organ with only implied consent open the doctor facing legal action? Expressed consent gets over this.

It is easy enough to get people to opt-in. You could ask colleges/uni’s to give them out at registration, GP practice staff could ask patients as they arive if they have thought about it and news papers could give them away. The way to get donor cards to people is not a problem.

As always, here is the link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5151532.ece

Been busy

Just in case anyone reads this and thinks I’ve gone away, I’ve not. Been a bit busy latley and promis to update the blog soon.

In meanttime, here are a couple of sites you might want to look at.

http://www.nhsexposed.com/

http://nhsexposedblog.blogspot.com/

Police to get access to national child database

It seems the goverment have finaly confirmed that the police are to be allowed to access the national child database.

First of all the people who are allowed access to this information (teachers, social workers and health workers to name but a few) steal information about children and their families so as to invade their privacy, now they are wanting to share the information with the police long after the child has turned 18.

With information being stolen from the childs and family Summary Care Record, it is easy to see how doctors/nurses are nothing short of agents for the state.

Link to story:

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/4090/police_to_get_access_to_national_child_database

More abuse of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000

Following on from my comments about Poole Council spying on familes (including a 3 year old) it seems that this is not a rare event.

It mow emergies that the abuse of counter terror/serious crime laws are being about 1000 times a month by councils (last year they made 12,494, request for this abuse, almost double of that of the previous year). The police made about 19,000 request and one local goverment body admited that councils and other goverment bodies will would soon be carrying out more of this survailance than the police! These are the same scum that will have access to the child index, contact point, socail care records (with data extracted from the Summary Care Record), phone records, who we email, web sites we visit and an ever growing intrusion into our lives.

It would now seem that laws to protect us from terrorist and serious crime is now used to watch where your dog shits,  what are they claiming? That dogs are now a bio hazzard and pose a significant threat to our security? If they are, then heaven help us with all the crap politians come out with these days!

And still they ask us to trust them. Still they say new powers will not be abused. Still they ask for more powers to invade our privacy and Still they lie to us every day. Do you really want these scum to get the chance to get hold of information about you?

No jail for data theft? Goverment backdown?

It would seem that the goverment want to back down on it’s plans for sending people to jail for breaching our privacy.

Comming at a time when the NHS are planning on sharing records online with even more people, you would think the goverment would want to take action.

The plan was to allow people to be sent to prison for breaches of the data protection act as at the moment all they get is a fine. What this means is that if someone steals your medical info, all they will get is a fine. Sending someone to prision would not undo the damage done to you, but it would be a deterent for reporters and others. Giving them juwst a fine is an insult and it goes to show that when it comes to privacy, the goverment do not take it seriousley.

To make things worse the goverment have been increasing the amount of people who know our information for years without the public knowing about it. Now that data is set to go national, they want to protect it even less. Whilst it is good to hear Harry Cayton complaining about the backdown it was dissapionting to here the goverment appoint patient rep (which makes him seem like a goverment rep) talking about how the NHS protects patient privacy, yet we all know that this is a load of bull and the NHS have been expanding the amount of data they share for years. It is not much use talking about legal protecting data when the goverment are doing away with privacy at a much faster rate.

And some people wonder why I take extra steps to secure my medical records. Here is a tip for those that store private data PROTECT IT! In the US and other countries you can be executed for commiting murder, that does not stop murder so why expect a fine or even sending people to prision will stop data theft?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/02/nhs.privacy

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/3614/patient_tsar_backs_tougher_data_theft_laws

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/01/media.privacy?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Cancer patient privacy

It is not very often I back a goverment/NHS body, but when they do something worth backing, I think it is right to back them.

It has been reported in the news that the Common Services Agency  (CSA) in Scotland are refusing to share patient data with the public. The CSA are going to the House of Lords to stop people who are meant to protect our privacy from sharing data which could lead to patients being identified. What chance do we have of privacy when even those that are meant to protect our privacy, such as the Scottish Information Commissoner are willing to risk our privacy so MPs and the public can get hold of confidential data?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7327914.stm

And the standards keep droping

It seems that Connecting for Health (people behind Englands NHS database) have decided to yet again lower the already low standards they have about access.

It has been reported that they are now agreed to allow people without qualifications, such as healthcare assistants, to access the patient Summary Care Record in full, not just the basics such as name and address or info they need to carry out blood presure readings. It was also claimed that admin staff were printing the information off, but it seems that CfH are now saying that this is not the case.

This just goes to show that when it comes to honesty and transparency CfH can be trusted about as much as an MP, and that is not saying very much.

The idea of spending £12-£20 bilion on the computer system was the paper records were meant to be less ’secure’. What we have now is data being shared with the Secondary Use Service, police seraching the database, researchers demanding access (which they will proberbly get with a Section Sixty), NHS staff being allowed direct access to identifiable data held by SUS and to top it off they are printing out paper records they claim are not secure enough! The list list of those with access is increasing all the time, yet patients are told sod all about it.

Some links to check out (dont forget the forum there is on the NO2ID website at http://forum.no2id.net/viewforum.php?f=58 where I post under the name ‘medical privacy’)

 http://www.civilservicenetwork.com/news/article.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=31742&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=107&cHash=d0f84cfec8

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony_collins/2008/03/no-qualifications-needed-to-ac.html#more

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7274773.stm

Police to access national NHS medical records

It seems that those of us that were worried about the police etc having access to the national NHS database are proven to be right to worry. It seems that the police have been given permission to access the database.

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony_collins/2008/02/police-will-be-allowed-searche.html

How long will it be bfore they and possibly the SS do searches for all possible knife/bullet wounds, all those under 16 on the pill, all those who access A&E twice or more in 3 months, rape victims, parents on drug rehab, parents who drink over a set limit of alcohol a week, those under 18 who admit to consuming alcohol, under 16s above/bellow a set Body Mass Index, parents on anti-depressants, parents in therapy. the list is possibly endless and the amount of people the info can be shared with (including local councils, SS, schools/teachers etc) is vastly more than people are told and vastly more than at any time in history and vastly more than any other ‘free’ country in the world. It seems that doctors and health workers in general realy are set to become ‘agents of the state’ but at the same time continue to lie about privacy and access to our most sensitive of information.

Other links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7250589.stm

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/

 

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

Security Breach

The one thing that anoyes me the most is people talking rubbish about access. Take the example of Michael Summers, of the Patients’ Association who said

“Patients provide confidential information to their GPs and to hospital doctors, information that no-one else has, on the basis that it will always remain confidential. Suddenly we discover that it’s not confidential after all. It gets leaked in one form or another and is lost“

You would think he would know that medical data is rarely handled in the way he says.

 The article is mainly about data lost by the NHS. They still claim that there is no evidence to suggest it got into the wrong hands but then ignore the basic fact that it is not in the right hands ether. These are the twits and morons hell bent on dowing away with medical privacy for good and they cant even look after what they have.

Full article can be found at

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=70BF167E-7612-47AF-87DC-9ACD23F5ABF6

Just started this blog. Will update it as soon as I get the chance