It’s been about a year since my last post here but I have been gainfully occupied, coordinating medConfidential along with Terri Dowty and Sam Smith.
If you want to keep up with the latest, please follow:
@EinsteinsAttic (me) or @medConfidential (the campaign) on Twitter
Or, if you’re into that sort of thing, visit our page on Facebook (ugh!)
If you don’t know what’s going on, or you’ve heard that something might be going to happen to your medical records then I strongly recommend you check out the medConfidential website and – if you have any concerns – opt out yourself and your dependents, i.e. minor children and people for whom you hold lasting power of attorney.
The care.data scheme is currently on hold, and we (medConfidential and others) are working hard to ensure that it is fixed – or if they* won’t fix it properly that it is stopped. Beyond that, we are trying to ensure that every flow of personal data into, within and out of the NHS and the wider care system is consensual, safe and transparent.
N.B. If you opt out now, the information held in your GP medical record will not be extracted in the Autumn. If at that point or any point therafter you believe that the system is safe and that your data won’t go anywhere you don’t want it to, you can always opt back in. Just be aware that once your data has been extracted, it will never be deleted.
Meanwhile, here is a funny video that a nice man called Paul Bernal made:
(Lots of in-jokes, but all you really have to know is that the chap driving care.data is called Tim Kelsey)
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*”they” in this instance is the Government, the Department of Health and two arms-length bodies, the NHS Commissioning Board (which styles itself ‘NHS England’) and the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).