BBC medical records story

[Ken Brown]

Pete Chown wrote:
> 
> David Hansen wrote:
> 
> > Nearly seven out of 10 (69%) said they would be willing to have the
> > responsibility of producing the records on visits to their GP or a
> > hospital.
> 
> What about people who lose them?  This sounds completely unworkable.

My GP lost my paper-based records. Would it make much difference?

Seriously though, it looks like yet another case of technically
illiterate politicians falling for a well-lubricated pitch from
technically illiterate salesmen from the big companies. That and the
"private-sector good, public-sector bad" mantra that is now firmly
embedded into government after nearly 25 years of indoctrination - few
civil servants between the ages of 25 and 50 have any real experience of
any other regime.

And of course, it is the back-door to an id card. I've often thought
that they will try to hitchhike something genuinely necessary on the
back of it, to try to get round the vocal few of us who would otherwise
tear their cards up and send them back.

I'd be prepared (though unhappy) to forgo the chance of legal foreign
travel if they made their id card compulsory for that. Medical records
however could be a lot more. I assume there would be some other place
they were held, and it would still be possible to use the NHS without
the card.

Of course they might tie it in with the anti-immigrant stance that
government increasingly promotes and force people without the cards to
go through some sort of humiliating citizenship check before treatment. 

Ken Brown