WRITTEN ON June 29th, 2007 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized
Just got this in rom the NHS London Comms Manager
29 June 2007
Dear William,
Re: D’oH! CAN keep a secret! But can it consult?
There are two issues highlighted in your article which need clarification:
1. The paper is not about “merging all health and social security records”
It is about agreeing what is the minimum information needed to help those staff providing care to vulnerable people within London, while protecting patients’ care and privacy. This initiative is to improve the methods used to access that information which is already shared between Health and Social Services. There is no intention of implementing any solution without the say-so of the NHS, Social Care and the public.
The sharing of personal information across health and social care is indeed a very important matter and something that NHS London takes very seriously. The safety of patients, their carers and the public is vital.
The term social security refers to benefits payments, which is not within the scope of the paper at all.
2. This paper was produced to clarify what information should – and should not – be accessible by authorised colleagues within the NHS and our partners in Social Care, while ensuring patient safety and confidentiality. This is not a public consultation, but a technical paper, setting out the draft requirements in order for BT– the supplier to the NHS in London – to propose a solution, if appropriate (please refer to the Background section of the paper).
The content is based on feedback from seminars with health, social care, adults and children’s services in London. It has since been circulated to all NHS and social care organisations in London to seek their advice and comments. The aim of this review is to ensure that the requirements we have outlined for BT meet the needs of the organisations in London, in the context of nationally defined safety, consent and confidentiality requirements.
We are pleased that Ideal Government and readers are interested in this work. We have already circulated the paper widely – to the NHS and to Social Care agencies – in London. If you have views, we are pleased to receive them, and will incorporate them wherever appropriate.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin Jarrold
Chief Information Officer, NHS London
Programme Director, NHS London Programme for IT
Happy we discuss the pros and cons of the proposal. But it’s also worth saying that this style of measured engagement with our lively conversation makes a lot of sense to me.
6 Responses to “Nice reply from the NHS London programme director…”
I’d call it obfuscating spin, not measured argument. Wasn’t the new prime minister supposed to be moving to a new style of government?
When is a consultation not a consultation? When it’s circulated only among the professional group who share the same aims and want a quiet life, and not among those who come from a quite different point of view and see things quite differently.
The human rights professor Douwe Korff writes
this is quite appalling, and yet another denial of the principle that data collected for one purpose should only be used for that purpose. the fact that there is no real consultation is a further scandal. i continue to be staggered by the arrogance of the authorities …
…and adds
i am concerned about the chap’s comment that data are already routinely exchanged between the NHS and social services:
specificially, is that done only with the consent of the person(s) concerned? if so, that is fine – a person who is in hospital after a fall may be happy with the social services providing him or her with a wheelchair, say – although you would still want strict limits on what data are passed on. but does this also cover non-consensual data sharing? for what purpose? to expose illegal immigrants, benefit frauds? under what conditions? what data are passed on? what about super-sensitive data such as data on hiv status? from the limited info i have seen, this looks like yet another “more data sharing is always best” initiative – and that is bad …and the lack of proper consultation (i now understand that this is a “review” in which many [selected] people have been informed – but of course not the general public
There’s a fair old discussion about this on the FIPR list which I wont repeat since:
a) it’s a private list and
b) it’s now now routinely read out in Parliament by “Lord” Warner so it’ll probably be in Hansard soon. We want to keep the moral high ground over “Lord” and his posse on matters of confidentiality.
But I believe NHS London has now had two submissions it wasn’t expecting for its non-consultation: one from FIPR and one from the BCS’s UK Computing Research Committee, the latter with the tactful preface:
It is not clear from the document whether you are seeking the views of professional societies but, in view of your imminent deadline for replies, here are some overall comments
That’s an exemplary way to respond to a non-consultation I reckon.
We live in a country where underage prgnency is high, teenage pregency is among the highest in europe, depression is high, alcohol and drug addiction is a problem and all the above is going up. At the same time the amount of intrusion into private life, fingerprint of children, intruding into family life and intruding into patient medical info is going up. Can anyone else see a lnk?
I fail to see why telling people that unless they are willing to see their data shared even further and be made available to even more people or not get help will benifit anyone. How will telling someone that wants help with a drink prblem to tell let all loads of people know about it or dont get help, help family life?
Better than that, I’d say this entering into the conversation is superb and very very ideal. Top marks Mr Jarrold.