Today in Health Data Insecurity

General practitioners in the UK are miffed because two software systems have been updated to allow 3rd parties to update patient records without the knowledge or approval of the patients or their doctors.

My guess is that this change is yet another attempt to bring the private sector into the operations of the NHS, but in any case, this appears to be insecure and dangerous for patients:

The UK's doctors' union has advised members running GP surgeries to turn off certain functionality in their IT system to prevent outside organizations adding to their workloads.

The row has broken out between the prestigious British Medical Association (BMA) and NHS England over data sharing capabilities in two common systems, TPP and EMIS.

In a YouTube video, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA's GP Committee, said GP Connect – a feature that allows data to be shared between general practices and other healthcare organizations – had introduced a new function called Update Record. At the moment, it is only being used to allow pharmacists to add data to GP records in a limited way.

However, concerns had been raised when the GP system providers had "tipped off" the BMA that doctors' ability to turn off the Update Record function was set to be removed.


"EMIS and TPP tipped us off that NHS England have asked for that 'off switch' to be removed," she said.

Because GPs are legally controllers of patient data under the UK's data protection law, they need to be able to prevent third parties updating records when necessary.

Even without the data protection law, it would seem to me that GPs would have a professional and moral obligation to prevent third parties from updating patient records without permission.

………

In a prepared statement, Dr David Wrigley, deputy chair and digital lead of BMA's England GP Committee, said: "We are recommending to GPs that they turn off the Update Record facility on GP Connect at the present time while we engage in discussions with NHS England to better understand the implications of this software.

"We are concerned about changes that allow others to add diagnoses, observations, and medications. These changes could have unintended consequences and add further pressure to the GP needing to ensure follow-up and ongoing care is provided to the patient due to other clinicians' decisions and actions. This will include more requests for follow-ups and support for patients for work initiated by others outside the practice team."

Given the predilection for the now former Tory government to ward privatizing NHS functions, and they tried to push while the elections were going on.

I cannot attribute this to anything but a desire for the Conservative appointed NHS executives to further put the privatization camel's nose further in the tent .