Do you care who sees your GP records?

You may have seen small paragraphs in the newspapers about your medical records about to be sold to private companies. Does this worry you, or are you not too concerned who sees your diagnoses, results and discussions with your GP?

The data will be shared widely, and extracts from your GP records will start shortly.

This is not the Summary Care Record, which has been around for a while and is to do with looking after you if you fall ill away from home. These extractions are nothing to do with your direct care.

They will go to a National central database, called Care.data, it will be hosted by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. It will be processed and passed to the police, local councils, social services, insurance companies, drug and research companies, in fact anyone who asks for it and can make a case for using it.

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/council-access-to-health-care-data-from-the-nhs-letter-from-the-cko

and more about it medconfidential.org/

You do have the right to object, but this is not being widely publicised, hence this posting. The British Computer Society Primary Health Care Specialist Group, of which I am Chair, is doing its best to push for a much better public awareness campaign. Obviously this is a personal post of mine, I would be interested to know how many of you had actually heard of it?

If you are not worried by this, that is fine and you need do nothing. If you would rather keep personal confidential data under your control, then contact your GP and ask them to put the codes on your record to prevent your particular data being extracted.

You may want to make your children aware too, I am too old to post to Mumsnet!