This week, general practitioners’ representatives gave a vote of no confidence in the UK government’s plans for sharing patients’ data. If fully implemented, the NHS summary care record would put basic patient information on a national database. Delegates at the BMA’s annual conference of local medical committees voted overwhelmingly against the idea of implied consent for sharing data with third parties (doi:10.1136/bmj.b2441). Patients should be asked to opt in rather than opt out, they said.

The failings of the government’s IT programme and concerns about clinical confidentiality must be largely to blame for this lack of confidence in the system. But our report …