We think the ladies protest too much . . .

As we drove one of our many practice Ferraris home from ND Central this evening across the high moorland and forest covered hills of rural Northernshire we were listening to the bleatings of a poor Northernshire citizen an alleged victim of the current cause celebre in the UK the phone hackings by the Press of certain peoples’ private data.

In medicine we would call this a breach of confidentiality which is a serious charge against a doctor and yet the loudest of the little bleaters was not one of the numerous maturing lambs we drove past on our way home but one of the biggest advocates of weapons of mass disclosure in our history none other than Gordon Brown something MP, sometime unelected Prime Minister and “saviour” of the World from the destruction of his own making.

On the Radio 4 news programme this evening he said as follows and if there are any factual typographical errors in this transcription it is because we are not audio/touch typists (our press officers had gone to get a late appointment but they were delayed due to leaves on the line):

“. . . if I with all the protection and all the defenses and all of the security that a chancellor of the exchequer or a Prime minister, am is so vulnerable to unscrupulous tactics, to unlawful tactics methods that have been used in the way we have found, what about the ordinary citizen?"

Yes what about the ordinary citizen Mr Brown? It is reckoned that perhaps 4000 peoples’ mobile phones in a population of 60 million have been hacked but you were, in your ignorance and while in power, more than happy to rush through a process to allow 60 million UK residents’ personal medical records to be uploaded without their active consent on to an inherently insecure government sponsored database with at least a million plus users?

Try doing something you have never done in your life called thinking. Which network is most likely to be hacked? Which network has the most holes?

If you are outraged by the disclosure of your family’s records to a select few journalists via dubious means how do you think an “ordinary citizen” will feel when their medical records are hacked for £ 20 of smack to a receptionist dismissed for drug misuse whose smartcard has not been cancelled? That is how easy it is to hack the Summary Care Record.

That is your creation, it is flawed and useless and if you feel that the disclosure of your childrens’ medical records is a problem then perhaps you ought to start thinking instead of bleating with your political colleagues like a Northernshire lamb.

Praise be to the Party for all of their leaders’ concerns about the confidentiality of the privileged. It would seem that they are all biting the hand that feeds them but what will happen when the hand slaps back?

More importantly when will they finally realise the inherent dangers of centralization of patient’s confidential medical information?

More Orwellian porcine equality.

One of the old Party’s great white elephants that it has bequeathed to the British public that is neither use nor ornament is the idea of the national Summary Care Record (SCR). The idea is that there would be a huge but “secure” summary of everyone’s medical record available to a selected few million plus (bureaucrats) at the touch of a button to preserve patient confidentiality.

If you were unlucky enough to have a cardiac arrest in some unknown ‘hood in the UK then while you were lying unconscious and rapidly approaching the reaper’s scythe, the caring medical team would find your wallet and immediately find some form of ID. Those caring for you (robbing you?) would have achieved basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at this stage and then they would then proceed with no delay to advanced Party CPR.

They would reach for their own personal life saving NHS Smartcard and rapidly log on to the computer by your side in the street where you happened to have collapsed and (in a mere matter of minutes) find your SCR.

Having found out all about your past medical history, drugs, allergies, address and telephone number all of which are essential before any medical professional could access the how to do CPR protocol on the same street side computer (what a marvel NHS IT is when saving lives) and only then could any Smartcard enabled individual start to do something useful such as save your life.

Given that our staff frequently cannot access anything Smartcard enabled service for hours at a time let us return to the real world. Fortunately not all of us live in Holby City, or work in the BBC Doctor GP practice, and if you were to have a cardiac arrest at ND Central you would not be treated by accessing a protocol or your SCR but by people who were trained and knew what to do without the “benefit” of either. They also know where to place a Smartcard for maximum patient benefit in such a situation.

The benevolence of the Party extends to applying the well known Orwellian pig principle to all who were to be allowed to opt out of the SCR and we were told that important people like Tony Blair would not have their records accessible to Jo or Josephine GP or a drug addicted clerk in a PCT typing pool. A little article shows that the new Party has had a little rethink and you can read about it here. The comments underneath are quite good too.

It would appear that a new super race are to be extended the politician’s porcine privilege of being SCR invisible. Now who might you ask are these? MI5 and 6 operatives? Undercover police officers? Other people whose work places them in life threatening and dangerous situations which might lead to them being targeted by international terrorists or criminal gangs? Teachers? Magistrates? High Court Judges?

Well according to the article only a mere 2000 people are currently considered Blairly important enough to be “flagged” but that number might soon increase for the new super race are none other than . . .

Celebrities.

Thank God that Jedward will be afforded the same security as the blessed Tony Blair while poor Professor Hawking’s medical record will be on public display.

The comment at the end by a GP that

“The need for politicians and celebrities to opt out of the care record demonstrates that it remains the chocolate firewall of NHS IT.”

is we think understated for a bar of chocolate would hold more water than the security of the NHS SCR sieve with its million plus holes.

Praise be to the Party for once again demonstrating its commitment to extending porcine equality to all pigs it serves and for value for money in procuring white elephants.

The Americans said they would put a man on the moon (and bring him back too!) within a decade and did. How long has the NHS computer system been in the delivering nothing useful stages and at what cost? Recession anyone and possible savings?

Wikileaks and the NHS sieve.

The news has had some items the past couple of days about the website Wikileaks and some embarrassing disclosures about the US diplomatic service. This surely must represent a warning about the use of electronic records to store sensitive personal information.

In the good old days to steal information you usually needed to get hold of paper documents which are large or use small cameras to smuggle the information out. Electronic storage of information pre internet meant you could get information, large amounts of it on magnetic tape and then as technology progressed on a small portable hard drive.

The internet has made getting information even easier for you do not now have to go anywhere near the site where the data is stored. The ability of teenagers to hack into sensitive databases means that most people with a bit of thought could get into a sensitive database.

So what has this to do with healthcare? Well think what the old, and it would appear the new Party, want to do with your GP records held on computer. The technology that is used in defence and the diplomatic service of the US is being applied to your GP’s medical records.

The paper Lloyd George envelopes have been replaced by local GPs holding electronic records on their own practice based servers which are now being replaced by large server centres holding many practices records all in one convenient place all now paid for by the State who manages them on your behalf via the local PCT.

So look at the alleged source of the leaks we believe to be a US private one of about 1.5 million service personnel in a total population of 300 million.

This could not happen here could it? Read any NHS propaganda website on this issue and you will know doubt be reassured.

But please think in a population of 60 million over 600,000 NHS Smart cards have been issued and no-one knows how many have gone missing. One private out of 1.5 million out of a total population of 300 million versus one disgruntled NHS employee out of over 600,000 in a population of 60 million.

Which nation has the greater chance of a leak via the National NHS electronic sieve?

And if you do look at or leak confidential information what do you suppose the penalties are? Hardly military discipline.

Compare that with the potential rewards to a journalist or a drug company. Imagine being able to search for patients with for example erectile dysfunction and what you could do with that information.

Praise be to the Party(s) for giving the world WikiNHSleaks free of charge to the patient and, at present, without your consent.