Care.data must become an opt-in system, say doctors

The care.data programme must be relaunched as an opt-in system because it risks undermining patients’ trust in doctors in its current form, BMA members have said.

Delegates at the BMA’s annual representative meeting in Harrogate voted in favour of a motion stating that care.data “should not continue in its present form” and “should be an opt-in system rather an opt-out one.” The motion said that the care.data system “lacks confidentiality” and “carries the risk of GPs losing the trust of their patients who may feel constrained in confiding …