UK Patient Security Needs Improvement

The UK government has admitted that the current state of patient security and confidentiality is in need of improvement. Despite the number of data breaches, the UK government has still been pursuing initiatives to revamp the health system to have centralized, and more accessible, health data.

The problems about protecting patient data are not going away – indeed, they are only getting more complicated with the centralized National Health Service (NHS) system on the way. Those concerns are compounded with the decision to allow pharmacists access to patient Summary Care Records (SCRs), which contain patient and treatment details.

The [Department for Health] admitted that maintaining the security and confidentiality of this data could be a challenge. “The NHS Care Record Guarantee [which promises careful and secure patient data handling] has been drawn up and agreed by key parties as to what patients have a right to expect about how any information about them in the Care Record Service may be stored, used, shared and transmitted.

“However, there have been specific concerns about the use of the Care Record Service in community pharmacies, also often thought of as a retail setting.”

As of yet, the government is saying that more discussions and assessments (read: red tape) need to take place in order for a decision to be made about how to protect patient data. So, it would seem that actually protecting that data is a long way off.

The new push to allow pharmacists access to SCRs has been a part of a UK$12.4 billion investment into the Connecting for Health program. This program could play a part in the push to enable patients to consult with pharmacists for non-serious issues, lifting some weight off the GPs’ shoulders. But, it may open the door for more data breach incidents. Only time will tell.

Via intergovworld Tags: nhs, health, health security, data, data breach, data security, health data, id theft, health id theft