Patients' privacy 'under threat'

It is feared it will not just be GPs who have access to patient records

The creation of a new health watchdog could threaten patient confidentiality, critics have warned.

The fears are over powers to be given to the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection CHAI).

Plans for the watchdog are contained in the Health and Social Care Bill, which will be debated in the House of Lords on Monday.

Doctors have warned the new body will be able to look at patients' records without their consent.

'Undermine relationship'

The Bill, which also outlines the controversial plans for foundation hospitals, is receiving its second hearing in the House of Lords.

There's been this gradual erosion of the right of protection of medical records Malcolm Alexander, Association of Community Health Councils

But the General Medical Council has expressed concerns about another part of the Bill which will outline CHAI's powers.

It fears that allowing it to look at patient's individual records could undermine the doctor-patient relationship, which is based on the patient's ability to talk confidentially to the doctor.

The Bill will mean CHAI could see records "where it is necessary or expedient". Anyone who refuses to cooperate could be prosecuted.

Sir Michael Buckley, a member of the GMC, said: "Doctors can't be expected to give patients proper treatment, to diagnose the illness and to prescribe the treatment unless they're given full information.

"If patients were holding things back because they thought "who else might find this", this would be seriously threatening to good patient care, so it's absolutely central."

'Erosion'

The Association of CHCs in England and Wales is already concerned that breaches of patient confidentiality were a growing problem in the health service despite measures like the Data Protection and Human Rights Acts which are supposed regulate and protect privacy.

Malcolm Alexander, director of the association, said: "I think we've got very little confidence in the system at the moment.

"There's been this gradual erosion of the right of protection of medical records.

"I think we have great fears that the system is going to become very leaky and that commercial companies are going to gain access to confidential information."

He said the situation could get worse if CHAI is given the powers to access records.

"If we can't trust the doctors and the health institutions that provide our care to keep our record confidential, then why would we want to share that information with them?

"It's absolutely essential that when we give information to doctors, that that information is accurate so doctors can make a proper judgement about our medical condition.

Data hindrance

"And if we can't trust them to keep that information confidential then that's going to be terrible for medical care."

The new watchdog will take over from the existing Commission for Health Improvement, which has nearly always has to work with anonymised data.

Rebecca Grey from CHI says this can be a hindrance.

"What we do need to do is track down some of the issues that we're looking at in terms of the quality of patient care down to an individual level.

"What we'd like to do is track the experience of individual patients as they go through services and often that's to be able to spot gaps in services.

"That's very difficult when all the information we look at is anonymised."

She said the commission would have been able to do a better job acting for patients with individual data.