After a concerted campaign by concerned people, NHS England has announced that Care.data, the plan to upload everyone’s medical records to a central database, is being postponed for 6 months.
Over 130,000 people in one day used the campaigning web site 38 Degrees to vote for staging a mass opt-out of Care.data because of concerns about privacy and the sale of their medical records to private companies. Within hours, NHS England staff met with 38 Degrees and later announced it would postpone its plans. The climbdown came after a wave of pressure from campaign groups. NHS England has said it will now try to “build public confidence in the system”.
Remember, if you live on a boat and you don’t have an address, you can register with a GP by using the GP surgery’s own address. If you are registered with a GP and you want to opt-out of data sharing now, you can do so using https://www.faxyourgp.com/ or
http://medconfidential.org/
See also http://kanda.boatingcommunity.org.uk/nhs-data-sharing-know-your-rights-to-opt-out/
For more information see
Medconfidential: http://medconfidential.org/
Sum of Us: http://action.sumofus.org/a/nhs-patient-corporations/
http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2014/02/19/nhs-care-data-our-meeting-with-nhs-england-yesterday/
Tags: Health, liveaboards, privacy