The future of the NHS’ big data initiative – care.data – is hanging in the balance after the British Medical Association (BMA) called for the scheme to be halted until patients had been fully informed about the programme.
NHS England agreed to a nationwide door-drop campaign in late January and early February following pressure from the Information Commissioner’s Office, but fewer than one-third of households have actually received one, according to reports.
Crisis talks are now understood to be taking place after weeks of mounting criticism and NHS England’s own admission that companies will be able to identify people on the database, despite the data being anonymised, and that it could be vulnerable to hackers.
With 10 days to go before the data extraction process begins, patients have only days left to register opposition to their data being uploaded from GPs’ surgeries into the care.data database
Dr Chaand Nagpaul (pictured), chairman of the GPs committee at the BMA, said: “The BMA is deeply concerned about the Government’s public information campaign for care.data. With just weeks to go until the uploading of patient data is scheduled to begin, patients remain inadequately informed about these proposals.”
He added: “Today we call on the government to ensure public trust in the system by properly informing the public about care.data before the currently planned data extracts commence, and produce evidence this has been achieved prior to uploads taking place.”
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BMA calls for NHS #BigData scheme – care.data – to be halted http://t.co/J1iiC567Hp #dataprotection #data