Uncertainty over legality of NCRS

Health minister Ben Bradshaw has refused to release information on the legality of the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS) and played down suggestions the NHS database will breach European law.

Bradshaw was responding to Jeremy Wright MP who had contacted the health minister on behalf of one of his constituents Dr Paul Thornton, a GP in Warwickshire who is campaigning against the consent model for the NCRS.

Bradshaw told Wright that the legal advice “was not available in a format that was suitable for publication” and, in any case, was subject to legal privilege.

Dr Thornton told EHI Primary Care that as the client of the advice, Bradshaw would be at liberty to release the advice if he chose to.

Dr Thornton added: “Mr Bradshaw seems to be demanding greater privacy between him and his lawyers than he is willing to allow for patients in their dealings with their doctors. If he is so confident of the legal advice he has been given, and that he expects health care workers to follow, he should have no difficulty in publishing the advice in full.”

The legal advice in question was prepared for the DH after Dr Thornton wrote a paper for the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners outlining why he believes the proposals for the NCRS are unlawful.

Extracts from the advice were cited in support of some of the NHS IT plans in the ministerial working party report on the Summary Care Record published in December last year.

However, Dr Thornton claims that the lawyers’ entire opinion should be available for public scrutiny, particularly given Parliament’s Health Committee has since heard evidence from Professor Douwe Korff , a professor of international law at London Metropolitan University, that the proposals may not meet the standards required by an EU directive.

In his response Bradshaw said that the reference by Professor Korff was to a draft working document rather than existing European law.

He told Wright that if the guidance on electronic medical records that was prepared by Data Protection Commissioners from across Europe “becomes accepted as the interpretation of the law that the European courts adopt in the future, questions might arise about NHS compliance” but said the DH expected the working document to be amended.

He added: “The UK Information Commissioner is represented on the group that is drafting the document and his staff have confidence that the final document will not require any significant change to NHS record keeping practices or law.”

Dr Thornton told EHI Primary Care that he would be meeting his MP later this week about his concerns.

Link

Debate over legality of Care Record Guarantee

Fiona Barr