Data watchdog urged to examine legality of NHS database

A GP who is campaigning against the NHS Care Records Services is calling on the watchdog for NHS data to examine the legality of the government’s proposals for the NHS database.

Dr Paul Thornton, a GP in Warwickshire, has written a 15 page report for the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care (NIGB) on the legal status of the NHS database.

Dr Thornton wants the NIGB to force the Department of Health to publish its legal advice on plans for the Summary Care Record and to get that advice updated in the light of subsequent legal rulings.

Dr Thornton told EHI Primary Care that the need to examine the legality of the NHS database had become even more important following the publication of the Coroners and Justice Bill last week.

The Bill aims to amend the Data Protection Act to enable greater sharing of information across government departments. Justice Secretary Jack Straw said it was intended to help fight crime and improve public services but opponents claimed it marked a further step towards a Big Brother state.

Dr Thornton told EHI Primary Care that he felt it was essential for the NIGB to look at legal advice obtained by the government in 2006 about the lawfulness of the NCRS.

He said: “I don’t think the NIGB can fulfil its role without seeing these documents and if they are entitled to see them then so is the rest of the population.”

The government obtained legal advice on the SCR when it carried out a ministerial review of its proposals in 2006 but has since refused to release it. Dr Thornton also has an outstanding Freedom of Information Act appeal with the Information Commissioner arguing for release of the legal advice.

In his report Dr Thornton welcomes the NIGB’s criticism of DH proposals to allow health professionals to use care records for research purposes without patient consent, outlined in the Board’s annual report in November.

At the time Harry Cayton, the board’s chair, told the Guardian newspaper that plans to give researchers access to patient information to recruit for medical trials was “ethically unacceptable.”

Dr Thornton said: “The standards now being demanded by the NIGB are already enshrined in UK law to an extent that the government cannot renege on as easily as it intends.”

Dr Thornton argues that European and UK law adds up to “at least a persisting reasonable doubt” with regard to the lawfulness of NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) proposals including the implied consent model for the SCR and the wider sharing of information on detailed care record systems.

The report claims there is a growing consensus that CfH should move away from the concept of a “monolithic enormous database” and Dr Thornton argues that the law also appears to demand such a redesign in favour of much smaller databases under the control of specific clinical teams.

His report adds: “Such a change in system design is more likely to facilitate successful implementation by providing better functionality for end users and therefore better data and message quality.”

Links

Patient privacy; UK Law to European Standards: Obligations for the NHS database

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