GPs call for halt to centrally-held patient records

Tags: child consent LMCs LMCs Quality

27 May 2008

GP representatives must ensure that a halt is put to the development of centrally-held patient records, this year’s local medical committees’ conference will hear.

The conference, to be held next month, is to debate a motion calling on the BMA’s General Practitioner Committee (GPC) to stop the development of centrally-held records and to promote a national publicity campaign to warn patients of the risks arising from their records being held on a national database.

Hertfordshire LMC is one of more than ten LMCs which have submitted motions to the conference expressing no confidence in the government’s record on handling confidential data and questioning current plans for the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS). The Hertfordshire motion calls for a halt to the development of centrally-held records and the promotion of the “much safer option” of locally held-interconnected record storage.

Dr Mark Andrews, chairman of Hertfordshire LMC, told EHI Primary Care: “If the government can lose two discs with the child benefit records of every child in the country what guarantees are there for the safety of patient records?”

Dr Andrews said the LMC also had concerns about the money being spent on developing centrally-held records, the impact of multiple contributors to records and the future development of systems if the number of suppliers was reduced to just one or two.

North Yorkshire LMC, supported by Bradford and Airedale LMC, submitted a motion calling for a publicity campaign to promote the dangers of a national database because it claimed the “government has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to maintain securely, confidential patient health records.”

The LMCs’ conference will hear calls for a reiteration of its existing policy that no patient data should be uploaded to the spine without patients’ expressed consent and a call for the GPC to desist from working with the government until comprehensive patient confidentiality guarantees and data security are in place.

In another priority motion, GP representatives will argue that GPs should remain as custodians of detailed electronic patient records and demand that records should only be editable by the originating organisation.

Coventry LMC’ s motion on the subject, one of 12 similar motions from LMCs, also states that detailed electronic records should never be accessible in total outside the originating organisation without explicit patient consent and the knowledge of the originating organisation and that it should be possible to block parts of the records from sharing outside the originating organisation.

The conference, to be held on June 12 and 13 at the Institute of Education in London, will also debate motions about the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QoF) including a call for the government to “publicly acknowledge and laud” practices’ achievements on the QOF and a call for clinical parameters to be reinstated “rather than subjective patient opinion for which there is no evidence of health benefit”.

Related document

LMCs’ conference agenda

Reader's Comments

PLEASE SOMEONE GET THEIR FACTS STRAIGHT!!!!

28 May 08 10:05

1. Secuirty problems have always been associated with Paper records and Back up disks for old systems.Therefore it is important that everyone finally realises that Centrally held records will be alot more secure than paper records and also there is no longer a need for back up disks that disappear in the post etc

2. The only danger I can foresee is GPs and other clinicians halting the NHS progress towards a One patient record where Patient safety is a priority with less chance of duplication of data and less risk of the patients being harmed.

3. The System used in the area I work in is only editable by the orginating organisation.

4. What we need to make sure is that the myths are dispelled and that patients get the correct/ accurate information and most importantly the best care that we can provide. Not rumours and propaganda.

I am not saying that some consultation and involvement is needed around sharing records and how a central record will work but I just hope that people get the correct information and can have discuss this fantastic opportunity to make progress the NHS in an adult fashion.

Get facts straight

28 May 08 10:05

I was so annoyed you can see by my errors in my last paragraph it should read as follows:

I am not saying that some consultation and involvement isn't needed around sharing records and how a central record will work but I just hope that people get the correct information and can discuss and move forward with this fantastic opportunity to make progress in the NHS, in an adult fashion.

Who's record is it anyway

28 May 08 13:05

GPs to refuse to share information ... Dangers of shared records ...

I'm with the first poster!

Lets face it the Government had nothing to do with 38 000 records going astray any more than it had to do with my mother missing a whole day off work some 40 years ago because the Hospital had lost my notes including the GPs request for me to be seen.

The main purpose of the medical record is to protect the patient and help the clinician to make informed decisions. When a patient is harmed by the uninformed actions of a clinician, how will you defend the charge that you are culpable because you advised the patient “not to share” or that you “refused to share.” Does the name Victoria Climbie ring any bells?

It is the Patient Record and GPs should not use it as a weapon for political ends

Posted anonymously because I still have to work with you

more secure?

stressfreedave@hotmail.com

31 May 08 13:05

nobody is saying paper records are more secure but at the same time people like me fail to see why puting the information on a central database and having that information shared further than the doctors/nurses treating the patient (such as SUS etc) is going to make the information more secure. You can not vastly increase the amount of people with access to the information and make it more secure than a GP practice computer system. SUS having access to patient identifiable data is not a myth, it is a fact. Police being allowed to search the database is not a myth, it is a fact. Researchers demanding access is not a myth, it is a fact. Staff share paswords etc, that is not a myth, that is a fact. The sharing of identifiable medical data has vastly increased over the years and people continue to demand it be shared even more, that is not a myth, that is fact. People like me only ever point out what we can prove and on a number of occassions I have offerd to provide emails backing up claims.

There are very few GPs that use paper records, most now write their notes on computer or tell someone else what to write (I have had GPs point out that because doctors "dont do computers", they no longer make their own notes and have started sharing the data further because of the use of computers). Promoters of the new national sytem often say things in such a way that makes people think it ether has to be on paper or on a national system. It is a matter of fact that most GP practices use computers and not paper records. It is a matter of fact that if all patient information was copied to a computer (ether locakl or national) those paper records would still be around as they can not be destroyed.

The issue of sending things through the post is very valid and even I agree that sending the data from the GPs computer direct to the consultant is the most secure. People like me are not against such things BUT we are aginst our confidential data being copied to other places and having it stored on a national system. My medical records are held on paper and locked away so only the doctor can get to them only because like every practice I have ever been at my GP practice computer system is not secure enough to stop the staff from reading my records.