Doctors highlight NHS data concerns
pharmafile | February 13, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | NHS, RGCP, UK, care data, doctors
Senior doctors have voiced their worries about the public’s lack of preparedness for the government’s planned roll-out of patient data sharing across the NHS, and have warned of a ‘crisis of confidence’.
“We are very concerned that, with just seven weeks to go before the national roll out, the public have not been properly informed about the benefits of and the safeguards surrounding the care.data programme,” said Professor Nigel Mathers, honorary secretary of the Royal College of GPs (RCGP).
“The inevitable result of the failure to make the case for the scheme is the crisis of public confidence that we are now seeing,” he added.
For its part, NHS England has reaffirmed its commitment to making patients aware of how they can opt out of care.data – a key plank of the government’s pledge to have a paperless NHS by 2018 – and what the benefits of the scheme are.
The organisation says it has sent a leaflet to every household and GP practice in England, plus has blitzed the media with articles ‘in all the major newspapers’.
It has also put information on the NHS Choices website and on social media, and ‘cascaded’ information via 350,000 patient groups and charities, it insists.
However, Mathers said doctors were up in the air about how some parts of the scheme will work in practice. “Many GPs remain uncertain about the safeguards that will apply,” he said.
“We urgently need a renewed national push by the authorities to ensure that patients are fully informed, in clear terms, about the benefits of the scheme, what their rights are, and what their rights to opt out are,” he explained.
The doctors’ concerns carry some weight since – quite apart from its status in the healthcare community – the RCGP is not opposed to the new central database.
“The College remains supportive of the care.data initiative in principle, as we believe that it will help the NHS improve the quality of care for patients and to better prepare for outbreaks of infectious disease, such as flu, through for example, the use of shared suitably anonymised data to build up a picture of which treatments work best,” Mathers continues.
“However we urgently need reassurance about what plans are being made to address current GP and public concerns to restore public confidence in the scheme,” he said.
Unless the government and NHS England act immediately, there will be questions “about the wisdom of rushing the scheme through before the current gaps in information and awareness have been addressed”.
“It would be a tragedy if something that could have enormous benefits for patient care falls at the first hurdle because of a failure of communication,” he concluded.
Adam Hill
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