A rock and a hard place? Ministry of Defence | Defence News | MOD confirms loss of recruitment data

[M J D Brown]

The final sentence of James Cox's summation points the way for action:

> Ian (et al), you know all this, so i suspect our argument is moot. 
> We're debating semantics with little positive outcome. That said, 
> there has been a consistent thread that i want to pick up on: the 
> health service's guidance on this appears to rely solely on the 
> Fraiser and Gillick cases - grey areas seem to be preferential. I 
> think i understand why; it allows for more scope of interpretation 
> when the courts do need to step in, however i don't think it's in the 
> best interests of the service, which may now be more vulnerable to 
> attacks from patients claiming compensation for data exposure. Given 
> also the epidemic of exposure from other parts of the government, 
> perhaps now is a time for the NHS management teams to re-evaluate how 
> it intends to go about protecting data from all parties: malicious 
> hackers right through to overwhelming parents.

Coincidentally, my own GP was asking me just last Friday about how to 
keep patient information away from the centralised NHS IT systems  I 
recall some time ago on this list a reference to a form that patients 
could sign to instruch such witholding, but cannot now find it.  Can 
some kind reader remind me?

Mike.