It beggars belief that a government department could act in such an incompetent and illegal manner. The situation is made even worse by ministers claiming that this was human error and not a system failure. Properly configured application software should never allow ordinary users to download an entire database, nor burn it to disk in an unencrypted form.
The episode highlights the government's cavalier disregard for personal data. In the wake of this, which patient will now allow their medical details to be uploaded to the spine?
Medical information is quite different from child benefit data because once a breach of medical confidentiality has occurred the genie can never be put back in the bottle. Those affected by the recent breach were able to change their bank accounts and passwords: but once the details of your schizophrenia at age 23, HIV status or recreational drug history are public then that is that. Your employment prospects, your personal relationships, indeed your whole life may well never be the same again.
A centralised medical database will improve the quality and efficiency of medical care enormously - but only if patient data is confidential, accessible only to clinicians and staff who have a direct need to know. Not only must the data be kept confidential, it has to be seen to be kept confidential. The child benefit fiasco, coupled with the government's insistence (against medical and professional IT advice) that everyone's medical data will be uploaded automatically to the spine unless a patient specifically objects, both shout that the DoH doesn't give two hoots over handling data responsibly. As a result patients in their droves will refuse to allow their data to be uploaded.
Connecting for Health needs, very urgently, to implement its data protection mechanisms completely, and very publicly; arrange for patients to opt in to uploading their data; and then go on a 'hearts and minds' campaign to persuade both professionals and patients that centrally kept data really is safe in their hands. It will be an uphill struggle.
Dr Lancelot is a GP from Lancashire. Email him at GPcolumnists@haymarket.com.
