Controversy surrounds England's new NHS database

In April 2014, the National Health Service (NHS) in England plans to launch care.data, a huge database that will gather and store patient records from general practices across the country. Its aims are laudable— enabling policy makers and researchers to assess the treatments given for various disorders, assess the eff ect of new drugs, monitor care quality, and identify public health issues such as infection outbreaks. However, concerns are mounting about storage, security, and possible use of the new database by insurance companies. It has been reported by UK media that insurance companies could quickly crosscheck information in care.data to link to their own patients’ records and use it to adjust premiums. Some patients’ groups have expressed concerns about the lack of information on care.data that is reaching England’s residents. Maureen Baker, chair of the UK’s Royal College of General Practitioners, believes that patients should be appropriately informed about the use of their data and the option to opt out of the care.data system. “We are in discussions with NHS England about providing more clarity to our general practitioner (GP) colleagues and their teams about the introduction of the scheme, including the use of data by commercial organisations and the safeguards that will apply.” Geraint Lewis, chief data offi cer at NHS England, says: “The NHS has been collecting information like this from hospitals for decades but until now we’ve been missing information about the quality of care provided outside hospital. This initiative is about upgrading our information systems to get a more rounded picture of the quality of care being delivered across all parts of the NHS and social care.” Lewis adds that a major awareness campaign has been running since April, 2013, sending a leafl et to every household in England, posters to all GP surgeries, and running adverts in national newspapers. But some households are yet to receive the leaflet, including, at the time of writing, that of Anna Bradley, the chief executive of Healthwatch England, a major patients’ advocacy body. “Many of those who have received this leafl et are failing to recognise it is important and are simply throwing it away”, says Bradley. “NHS England have relied on