The Green Party is calling on new Health Secretary Sajid Javid to halt plans to collate millions of NHS patient records from GP surgeries into a single database, this will be accessible to private companies.
Green Party health spokesperson Peter Cranie has urged
Sajid Javid to dismantle the ‘toxic legacy’ left by his predecessor Matt Hancock.
He
said that “Once
again we see this government prioritise profits over people. These plans could
enable US health companies to potentially make huge profits off the back of
processing some of our most sensitive and personal data”.
He said plans to
make patient data accessible were part of an ‘ideological drive to turn one of
the UK’s most treasured assets into a money-making scheme for US health
companies’.
He went on to
warn that were this to happen the NHS “may then face the prospect of having to buy back the processed
data, with the resultant cost to taxpayers. We will end up paying for their
shareholder distributions”.
The proposed ‘data grab’ is
part of the government’s plans for the introduction of a data sharing scheme
called General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) put forward by
the coalition in 2013.
The Green Party has
concerns, along with many health campaigners, about patient privacy and the potential
use of data held to be used to enrich private companies. Government promises
about maintaining patient anonymity have so far proved unconvincing.
In their manifesto for the
2019 General Election the Green Party pledged to “end the sale of personal data,
such as health or tax records, for commercial or other ends” and their opposition
to the latest iteration of the proposal continues that position.
A spokesperson for North
Staffs Green Party said, “at the recent by-election and during the county
council elections in May the NHS was one of the issues people wanted to talk
about most”.
Adding that “everyone we
spoke to was dismayed at the paltry 1% pay rise offered to NHS staff who have
been national heroes over the past year. They were equally concerned that data
gathered by such a trusted institution could be used by private companies against
their wishes”.
Green Party Health
Spokesperson Peter Cranie said in a press statement “Healthcare should not be
used to enrich private companies with commercial interests when there is
already a strong infrastructure in our UK Higher Education system to analyse
this data confidentially in a not-for-profit way”.
Then warned “this will not only cost people
their privacy, in the long run it will hit us all in the pocket and it must be
resisted”, before going on to say, “We urge Sajid Javid to listen to
campaigners and drop the plans to share peoples’ data with private companies
and hold a proper consultation on the rest of the plans.”
Collection of data from GP surgeries starts on
1st September, patients have the opportunity to opt out of the scheme
by completing a form accessible by using this link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research#type-1-opt-out-opting-out-of-nhs-digital-collecting-your-data-
, some surgeries have set a
deadline of 23rd August for forms to be completed.
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