Home Our NHS GP Medical Records Are Going to be Sold – Here’s how to Opt out

Our NHS GP Medical Records Are Going to be Sold – Here’s how to Opt out

The NHS has announced that your GP medical records could be/ will be shared with the government and Interested “Third bodies” ie sold off to private health companies for them to take advantage of you and make huge profits at your expense. This is about ‘any living patient registered at a GP practice in England when the collection started’. NHS Digital – the social care system’s information and technology partner had said that they will be able to take the following GPs’ records, ‘Data about diagnoses, symptoms, observations, test results, medications, allergies, immunisations, referrals, recalls and appointments, including information about physical, mental and sexual health.” This will also include data about “staff who have treated patients”, and data “on sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation”, as well as other sensitive data.’

What will the Government do with this the NHS GP data?

After having collected the millions of patients’ GP history, their data will be “disseminated” – which basically means it will be shared/spread. Now, adding onto this, the Government has commanded NHS Digital to hand over a copy of patients’ lifelong medical history to be SOLD. Most likely, many aren’t aware of this. On its website, NHS Digital states that it “is publicly funded and we operate on a cost-recovery basis” and that it does not “charge for data” – only to cover the cost of processing and delivering its service. The government’s track record of spending billions on unnecessary projects is quite alarming – I would be sufficiently alarmed if I was you.

Obviously, this data is extremely sensitive and detailed. This contains the history of events in someone’s lifetime that impacts their physical and also mental health. Now, while it is stated that the patient data is going to start being extracted from the 1st July 2021, it also says that individuals have until the 23rd June to opt-out. A press release on this matter stated that people can opt-out at any time. However, the privacy notice states that NHS Digital will however still hold the patient data which was shared with us before you registered the Type 1 opt-out” This basically means that if your data has already been collected by the time you opt-out, the NHS is never going to be deleted.

matt hancock uk governement nhs gp medical data

NHS Digital does audit some (but not all) of its customers which receive copies of data. Several of these audits have revealed that, not only do organisations break the ‘protections’ in place but that these do not stop them from getting data once they have been broken. Some of these protections are legal obligations, but audits have shown that one public body did not even conduct a legally required data protection impact assessment.

Personally, I find that we are in a day & age where a lot of our data is being farmed. We have little privacy in the online world. Our data is constantly being collected and sold – just look at Facebook. Isn’t this an infringement of our rights?

How can you opt out of the NHS Digital data grab?

Click here to head to the NHS website. There you will be able to read about your choices, what data is used for and more. At the bottom of the page, you will be able to find a form to make sure you opt-out from this privacy-invading scheme.

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