Management Toolkit

Story: Health committee chair backs database plans

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For Clarity

[[[ Kevin Barron told a Westminster Hall debate on the subject he thought it sad that some health professionals are actively campaigning against the record being introduced. ]]]

I agree with Mr Barron, but probably not for the same reasons. I think it is sad that the Dept for Health have barged on with this scheme without proper consultation, on a politically inspired suicidal timetable and have resorted to secret reports and gagging orders to prevent people from knowing quite how badly it is going ...... and that therefore the more ethical of our GPs have decided to prevent their patients from being harmed.

Mr Barron seems to be sad that the GPs have not "Held the Line" and displayed loyalty to the government; deciding instead to side with their patients instead .. scandalous.

[[[ saying that the records will be sold to pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and that the government will profit from them [...] That is palpable nonsense, but it is being propagated by medical professionals in this country," ]]]

But the government's own sites say that the centralised records *will* be made available to pharmaceutical and insurance companies and the government *will* be paid for this access, don't they? Given that this is the case, what part of this is "palpable nonsense"?

[[[ If I am on holiday in Torquay and keel over in the road because of a long-term condition, it may not immediately be obvious what the problem is. ]]]

Wow, that's an old one, but then I guess that the MPs he is addressing aren't too well up on this subject. The simple rebuttal to this is "How is it done today?". If I had a long term condition that might cause me to keel over in the road, I would be wearing a dog tag with relevant details and the emergency contact for my GP. I would most *definitely* trust amy life to a dog tag round my neck over a government run database *every* time.

Oh and I love the hurricane argument. I would hope that my GP and every other responsible GP will have an encrypted off site backup of my data.

Should I rehash the arguments against this expensive, unnecessary, dangerous white elephant? Naah. The rest of us, apart from this chap, have heard them 1000 times.

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