CAP consultation and extension of access to PDS

[Pete Mitchell]

Mary Hawking wrote  on 14-04-09 07:30:
> PDS - the Personal Demographic Service - is the database held by CfH for 
> the NHS where all the population of England have their NHS numbers and 
> demographics recorded and accessible.
> To access PDS you need to have a smartcard and be operating in a role 
> needing access - to the whole population of England registered with a GP.
> This consultation on the Common Assessment Framework
> http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_093438
> (which closes on 17th April) plans to use the NHS Number as the unique 
> identifier for care plans which spread across Health and Social Services 
> and for that will need many people outside the NHS to have access to PDS.
> Does anyone else feel this is a security and privacy issue?

Of course. It was highly controversial when first suggested a few years
ago, and IIRC after much debate ruled out as unethical by Harry Cayton's
Care Records Development Board.

The issues being that (i) the content of social care records is far 
flakier than personal medical records, in fact they are often nothing 
more than a pack of lies and unfounded allegations; and (ii) social 
workers who have access to this stuff are far less concerned with
the confidentiality ethic than are doctors and other medical 
professionals. So once medical records are linked across to social care 
records by the same identifier, breaches of confidentiality are much 
more likely.

However, it is one of those things that are inevitable, like planning
permission for the Tesco superstore at the end of your street. The 
people who want to do it for their own convenience and profit don't take 
the first "no" for an answer, or the second; they keep coming back and 
back and back until finally, by hook or crook, they get what they want.

-- 
Pete Mitchell