Patients are contacting their GPs with concerns about the confidentiality of their data held on GP computer systems as awareness about the NHS Care Records Service spreads, according to the British Medical Association’s GP committee.
The General Practitioner Committee says patients are beginning to ask about the government’s plans for a central care record and some are requesting that their records do no go onto "NHS computers".
The GPC issued advice after its monthly meeting last week telling GPs that it was both GPC and BMA policy that patient data should not go onto the spine until concerns about privacy and confidentiality have been answered.
The advice says: "Patients should therefore be reassured that data collected locally on GP controlled systems, even though these are ‘NHS computers’, is best, safe and essential for their care. Data collected in this manner will not go onto the “spine”. Data will only go to outside agencies with the patient’s express consent and that only relevant data will be shared. Patients should be encouraged to allow GPs to continue to build locally held and controlled electronic records."
Dr Adrian Midgley, a GP in Exeter, is among those who have had queries from patients who are concerned about the confidentiality of their data. He has also contacted his own GP and MP to state that he wishes his own information to remain confidential to his practice.
He told EHI Primary Care: “I was involved in some research in the late 1990s with members of the GPUK mailing list which came to the conclusion that if a refer a patient to a consultant the patient expects that I will write the letter and the consultant will open the envelope and read it. Patients are prepared to accept that my secretary and the consultant’s secretary might be involved but not the system administrator, the referral coordinator or anyone else.”
Dr Midgley said he had recently updated his practice website and had been forced to update the paragraphs on confidentiality.
He added: "I’m not in a position to promise NHS patients anything like confidentiality over any of their information."
Dr Phil Dommett, chairman of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Medical Committee, said his GP members were contacting the LMC because patients were concerned about the confidentiality of their records.
He told EHI Primary Care: "Some patients are telling us that they don’t want their information going out of the building and I think they have got reasons to be worried. We have quite a lot concerns about sharing of information and we’re not yet convinced that we have got enough assurances about it."
Dr Dommett said his LMC had put a motion to next month’s national LMCs’ conference criticising the suggestion that there would be differing levels of security within the NHS Care Records Service.
Dr Dommett added: “It has been suggested that the health records of MPs and their children will have greater security that the ordinary man in the street which is very disturbing as obviously everyone is entitled to the same level of security.”
Dr Midgley said he believed the government was using patients trust in their GPs to push through its plans on patient information.
He added: “The NHS is yet again using the credibility that GPs have and mixing that up with what its doing for political ends.”
The GPC says it is concerned that GPs might consider using dual paper and computer systems or two parallel computer systems to assuage patients’ concerns about confidentiality and it says there are potential disadvantages and even dangers in running multiple record systems.
Dr Paul Cundy, chairman of the joint GPC and RCGP IT committee, said : “Anything recorded on paper is a retrograde step and we also want to avoid separate computer systems.”
The advice from the GPC adds that electronic transfer of GP records (GP2GP) will soon be a reality but that, although the records will transit over the spine, no data will be retained by (or leak onto) the spine during the exchange.