Opt-Out of the latest DataGrab

There has been a lot of media concern about the government’s plan to share medical data with non-NHS organisations. Like many NHS campaigns around the country we are deeply concerned about the latest moves by the Department of Health and NHS England to take patient records, copy them onto a new digital database and make them available to third parties including the large American corporations who are keen to access our 73years worth of continuous patient/doctor relationship data. There’s huge amounts of money to be made in data.

This was The Times newspaper heading in which it stated that The Doctors’ Association UK said it was concerned that the proposal would erode the doctor patient relationship, leaving patients reluctant to share their problems due to fears of where their data will be shared. Certainly we think this is the case.

It was a great surprise to see the issue even featured on BBC The One Show on June 3rd.

Plan to share medical date risks eroding patient trust

Nationally the discovery that the public are only being given three weeks to opt-out of a non-publicised scheme has been met with outrage at this latest attempt to use patient data in this way. In East London one large group of GPs have refused to pass on their patients’ records to the scheme. Dr Jackie Appleby, speaking on behalf of the group said:

“General Practice is in crisis. With the pandemic, a declining workforce and increasing workload we are struggling to provide the services our patients deserve. The government and NHS Digital are well aware of this. But they expect practices to inform patients of this comprehensive extraction of their health data, giving patients the chance to opt out, within three weeks. Some of it is deeply personal. There is not time to do this in three weeks and if GPs enable this data sharing we risk undermining the trust of our patients.”

As your GP or Practice Nurse inputs your answers into the system – don’t you want to feel that your private information is being stored securely within an NHS only system? https://epaper.thetimes.co.uk/the-times/20210531/281535113908940

David Davis MP (Conservative) is part of a team who are putting forward a legal challenge to this move by NHS England and NHS Digital. He is working with The Doctors Association (UK), the Citizens (independent journalists) openDemocracy, and patient rights group Just Treatment. We are very interested in what our MP Jonathan Djanogly has to say.

If you are worried about your GP patient data being sold-off to non NHS organisations then Hands Off Hinchingbrooke are pleased to let you know…

There are two simple forms that you can use.

Type 1 Form (urgent) is a download form and requires you to simply fill in Name, address and NHS number if known. This is the form that needs to be completed and handed/sent to your GP Surgery before the 23rd June. This is with regard to your personal patient records held by the GP.

TYPE-1-OPT-OUT-FORM

Download

Type 2 Form is an online form that takes just a few seconds to complete and there is no immediate deadline. This covers your records that are created by hospital visits.

THIS IS THE LINK: https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/