Another terrible development which has not yet come about, but soon will, and which as usual we are prevented from speaking out against by lack of social status and financial support. Discussing different plans to computerise medical records in a recent Daily Mail:
Patients’ medical records could be transferred to Google under plans being considered by the Tories ... But campaigners and doctors claim patient information could be vulnerable to hackers.
And there are also concerns it could put lives in danger because it would be harder for doctors to access vital medical information in an emergency than under Labour’s rival NHS computer scheme. *
Campaigners claim that the medical records of victims might be ‘vulnerable to hackers’. But it seems no one is complaining that they would be vulnerable to doctors which is – or ought to be – the most serious concern. ‘Patient confidentiality’ now means that not only the socially authorised sadist you have consulted will be free to record his opinions about your problems, but that these opinions are accessible to all members of the medical Mafia. Which makes a mockery of the idea of seeking a second (or third) opinion and starting from scratch with another doctor, difficult though that is anyway already, and almost impossible without the ‘permission’ of the doctor first consulted, and without the second doctor knowing that he had a predecessor.
* 7 July 2009