NHS
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Can anyone patch up care.data, or is it too late? By Jane Fae
Care.data has had a bad seven days. Last Tuesday it received a serious mauling by the Commons Health Committee. On Friday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt came sailing to the rescue with an announcement of new laws that will bar the NHS from selling personal medical records for insurance and commercial purposes – though care.data boss… Continue reading
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Government brushes aside NHS Free Trade Treaty Concerns By Ben Cooper
MPs raise concerns about the impact the forthcoming trade treaty, TTIP, will have on the NHS – but Minster Without Portfolio Ken Clarke says it will make no difference. The government refused to exempt the NHS from the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) despite a volley of concerns from opposition MPs aired during… Continue reading
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Is selling our medical data to insurers a crime – or not? By Jane Fae
As more revelations emerge about the sale of our hospital data to the insurance industry, misleading claims that a massive expansion in data collection is totally safe, are failing to convince. Continue reading
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NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests
This list represents the dire state of our democracy. The financial and vested interests of our MPs and Lords in private healthcare. Continue reading
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Don’t close our hospitals on the quiet, protesters tell Health Secretary By Jos Bell
From Yorkshire to London, hospitals are under threat – and the government is trying to make them far easier to close on the quiet…Lewisham Campaigners were in usual dogged but polite mode when they dropped in to see Jeremy Hunt. He can’t say he wasn’t warned. A year ago he had hidden from a Valentine’s… Continue reading
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medConfidential Bulletin, 21st February 2014
As you will by now be aware, on Tuesday afternoon the Director of Patients and Information at NHS England, Tim Kelsey, announced a second 6 month delay to the uploading of data from GP practices across England. The first delay to uploads last September was only achieved after medConfidential had alerted the Information Commissioner’s Office… Continue reading
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NHS IT boss Kelsey wrongly claims care.data leaflet sent to 100% of homes By Jane Fae
Confidence in NHS England’s commitment to transparency and openness received another blow this morning as a full and frank explanation of yesterday’s events by NHS IT Director Tim Kelsey made two more inaccurate and misleading statements about the care.data leafleting process. Continue reading
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NHS England delays share of personal data By Jane Fae
As criticism of the controversial care.data scheme reached a crescendo last night, and with at least two possible legal challenges now under way, NHS England finally gave in to critics, announcing a further six month pause to the project – and yet more money to be spent on publicity campaigns. Continue reading
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Autoasphyxiation – Who’ll stop the market suffocating the NHS? By David Zigmond
The toxic burden of the market is dooming the NHS to disintegration and depersonalisation – yet GPs coralled into Clinical Commissioning Groups aren’t even allowed to question it. Continue reading
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Top Brit docs wade into GP data grab row, demand ‘urgent’ NHS England talks By Kelly Fiveash
Pressure is mounting on NHS England to stall its incoming data grab of GP-stored medical records, after another health body said that the government needed to improve public awareness of the controversial scheme. Continue reading
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The NHS: A Symbol in Peril By Doctormagiot
The NHS is now locked into a transformative process since the enactment of Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill last year. My friends in the world of public health tell me there is a fair amount of confusion as to what is actually going on, with the dissolution of primary care trusts in favour… Continue reading
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Ed Miliband, the NHS, and the lurch back towards Blairism By John Lister
Ed Miliband’s Hugo Young lecture this week represents a giant step back to Blairism, and an extended statement of Labour’s failure to get the message. Continue reading
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UK: ACT NOW to protect your medical confidentiality
Sometime in January 2014 you may have received a leaflet via junk mail, entitled ‘Better information means better care‘ (2MB PDF file). It may not be clear from the leaflet that a significant change in what is done with your medical records is about to happen. Continue reading
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The fight against TTIP is also a fight for public services everywhere By Ruth Bergan
The 1999 Battle for Seattle was a moment of triumph for trade campaigning. Activists from across the world came together with developing country governments and stopped the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from agreeing damaging trade rules. Through the 2000s campaigners continued to mobilise against the WTO and Europe’s unfair trade deals with the world’s poorest… Continue reading
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How safe are your medical records?
At Liberty we’ve reacted with significant concern over NHS England’s new plans for a ‘care.data’ database. This could see your private medical records – including highly sensitive data – shared on a single database. Continue reading
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If Owen Paterson was your GP, would you look for a new one? By David McCoy
Paterson, as Secretary of State for the Environment, leads on government policy on climate change. His reaction to the latest report on the physical science of climate change by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) raises questions about his fitness to play this vital role. If his attitude towards the care of the planet… Continue reading
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Hunt seeks to shed his duty to keep our medical data safe By Benedict Cooper
Last week in a public committee session of the Care Bill, MPs grilled Conservative ministers within the Department of Health over the dangers of the “unintended consequences” of changes to the way data is handled which could, they said, lead to private providers and insurance companies gaining access to confidential records. Continue reading
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UK national health records database to have ‘backdoors’ for police, govt?
While care.data will not store the names of the patients, it will include National Health System numbers, dates of birth, postcodes, ethnicity and sex, in addition to health condition and prescribed drugs. The goal is to sell access to the data to university researchers, health insurance companies and other parties, which can make use of… Continue reading
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Care.data questions mount – just who’ll get our medical data? By Jane Fae
Official attempts to inform patients about what will happen to their data when the new care.data database is implemented are inadequate and, on the latest evidence, seriously misleading. In August of last year, the Information Commissioner warned GPs they’d likely breach Data Protection Act if they allowed their patient data to be uploaded to care.data… Continue reading
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‘Maybe we haven’t been clear enough about med records opt-out’, admits NHS data boss By Kelly Fiveash
NHS data chief Tim Kelsey admitted today that the health service had failed to adequately inform patients about how they can opt out of having their GP medical records shared throughout England. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 