Doctors wary on NHS database security

Doctors don't believe the government is capable of keeping patients' data safe, with 93 per cent polled by the British Medical Association (BMA) saying they were not confident the NHS centralised database would be secure.

The BMA said that a string of recent high profile data losses, including breaches in an online junior doctors' recruitment system, have left medical staff feeling uneasy about the new National Care Records service - an electronic records system which is part of the NHS' £12 billion National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Dr Sally Simmons was one of the junior doctors whose private information was shown online in the recruitment scandal last year. She was also one of 25 million affected by HM Revenue and Custom's loss of two discs last year. "I have received no apology from the Department of Health despite writing to the former health secretary [Patricia Hewitt]," she said. "Not surprisingly, I have no faith in any form of IT security that this government proposes."

Nine out of 10 of the 219 doctors surveyed said they did not feel comfortable promising their patients that their data would be safe. And some eight of 10 said they would not want their own surgery information stored on the NHS database.

Another doctor told the BMA: "With the [recruitment website] debacle, the government has proven itself to be pretty incompetent in handling and protecting sensitive data. Forget ID cards; the national NHS database poses an even greater risk of our personal data being released into the public domain and being misused."

Despite the security concerns, some doctors see the potential for benefits. One doctor told the BMA that the NHS should take up the security challenge: "Many institutions, including banks, have done it. So why should the NHS lag behind? Protecting data would always be challenging, but it should not prevent patients and doctors from reaping the benefits of an easily accessible database."

Berkshire GP Dr Meg Thomas said: "This will help with continuity of care and communication between primary and secondary care ... There may be a risk but paper records are also going astray. We need to join the 21st century and quick."

At a conference last year, the head of NHS IT Richard Granger - who was supposed to step down in October, but remains in the position - said the NPfIT was hurt by too much whingeing.

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