With incidents like these do we really want Electronic Patient Records?

This report from the BBC shows that yet more of our personal information is being lost my government agencies.  It really gives you confidence that information kept in electronic patient records will be safe doesn’t it?

 To read my views on EPRs please do have a look at this paper.

 

Bogus U-turn on electronic patient records points to more

This story in today’s Daily Mail concerning a U-turn on electronic patient records is another piece of spin from the government. For while patients will now be able to view and amend their electronic records they will only have a limited say in how their personal information is – or is not – shared with professionals across the NHS.Away from the all the weasel words the government is still on track to holding vast amounts of data on citizens and making it available to a host of government departments across Whitehall.

I don’t mind electronic patient records in the private sector – providing no one in government can access them. But I do mind such a scheme in the state sector.

 

Electronic patient records in the hands of joined up government

 

Just as Richard Thomas, the government’s information commissioner, is warning that Britain is sleep walking into a surveillance state I note this article on electronic patient records in the Guardian  It states:

“Millions of personal medical records are to be uploaded regardless of  patients’ wishes to a central national  database from where information can be made available to police and security services, the Guardian has learned.”

This is no surprise. Having previously written this  back in 2001, I have long feared what the Guardian is now alluding to.

Mark my words, electronic patients records in the hands of “joined up government” really will turn out to be a nightmare.