Conditions for patients to opt out of new database clarified
The Department of Health has clarified the conditions under which patients may opt out of various aspects of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) electronic database in light of media enquires.
A spokesman for NPfIT explained that in extreme circumstances a person
may opt out of having their information held on the database if they
can demonstrate that the holding of information would cause unwarranted
damage or distress to themselves or to somebody else. Patients can also
opt not to have electronic data held about them shared. In this case
their data would still be recorded locally and sent to the national database
but it would be “locked” so that no one can see it. Patients’ local
records can also have greater access controls so that they would only
be accessible to the organisation that generated them and not, for example,
to clinicians in other NHS
organisations. Patients do not have to prove harm to opt out in this
way. “Should patients change their mind, the national shared records
can be activated for sharing immediately and additional access controls
around local records can be removed,” the spokesman said.
Finally, patients will be able to select certain information about their
health to go into a “patient sealed envelope”. This would
mean that the patient had normal local and national records, but selected
data would be restricted for access only by certain clinicians. |
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