BMJ  2004;328:1200 (15 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7449.1200-a

Letter

NHS national programme for information technology

Programme erodes confidentiality of medical records

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—At the same time as the Data Protection Act and the Human Tissue Bill are making life difficult for doctors and researchers in a misguided and unwanted effort to protect patients' rights,1 the NHS is eroding the confidentiality of medical records.

A process of linking hospital computerised record systems has been going on for a few years. This entails a huge increase in the number of people who are authorised to access sensitive medical data—most obviously pathology data. This obviously reduces the security of the data, but no consultation process has taken place about the wisdom of doing it.

Similarly, and much worse, the national programme for information technology proposes that all medical data including general practice records should be accessible by doctors across the whole of England by linking all medical computer systems. It takes only one corrupt user to access any medical data for anyone on . . . [Full text of this article]

Ted A Willis, general practitioner

Bridge Street Surgery, Brigg, North Lincolnshire DN20 8NT tedw@onetel.net.uk


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