Is there such a thing as confidentiality any more?

I had refused my medical records being computerised as I believed that they eventually would be sold/made available to insurance companies and their like.i also insisted a letter to that effect was held in my medical notes.

Part of me thinks we lost the right to confidentiality ages ago what with CCTV everywhere and our telephone numbers being sold for advertising purposes. Loyalty cards have a similar effect - information is gathered about our habits and who knows what happens to that beyond the store's initial use? There's often a disclaimer box (if we notice it) for us to stop 'them' sharing information with third parties. I do my best to limit the spread but sometimes I think I don't have much say really.

On the other hand, we were very glad to find medical records were computerised recently when my mum needed emergency hospital treatment - it was so much easier for all concerned to read her file than to wait for records to be sent from other sources.

If our medical records are now computerised how come many hospitals use different systems which don't 'talk' to each other. Also following a recent stay in hospital it would have been useful had my health centre actually read my notes, then perhaps they could have dealt with me correctly.

Ah, that would be too easy. Communication is a human issue. It takes will for people to use the system in a way that would make life run smoother.

LizG, perhaps your local hospital hasn't digitised your notes yet...ours have only done so recently and I'm not convinced they are instantly accessed and read by any healthcare official!

Perhaps I should be bothered about this but I can't seem to get very het up about it. I feel the same about identity cards. I am not interesting enough for anyone to look at all the information about me. Maybe I'm missing something but what use would knowing all about me be to anyone? I've signed up to the TPS so don't get many sales calls and those I do I can ignore as they must be untrustworthy if they have called me.

I like the idea that if I were taken ill suddenly there is a chance the hospital could access my records.

Movedalot Like you I am resigned to the fact that there arganisations out there who know more about me and my habits than I do myself.
The Echelon system has all our mobile and telecom calls monitored, all emails are monitored, all internet browsing activity is monitored so what is left? The supermarkets know at what time of the month I am likely to need washing powder, toothpaste, chocolate or milk and what programmes I am likely to watch on TV are known.
As for medical records I have taken to writing "A doctor" on all forms that ask "who should we contact in case of medical emergency" Why would I want my son, a mathematician, who will invariably be a couple of thousand miles away from me contacted if I needed urgent medical treatment in an emergency (wink)

Sorry that should have been - must pay more attention in future!

Love that idea ps, never thought about it but how would my ballet dancer son be able to help if I am ill? He is good on strains and muscle issues but they are not an emergency!

All our health records are being commoditised (if that's a word) in order to be sold e.g. to Google (check out their '23 and me' project). I posted about it a while ago and there were no comments, perhaps because it sounds a bit 'conspiracy theory-ish' but here's the link again in case anyone is interested http://medconfidential.org/

medconfidential.org/ sorry meant to make the link live.

my grandson aged 7 was run over by a Lifeguard in Cornwall (not GS1's fault) and he was treated brilliantly by all the Cornish emergency services but when he arrived in Bristol they couldn't open the information sent through the ether. if the suggestion is Google could see these records then perhaps they should have been included in the medical team.

If anyone is collecting details of all the things I get up to I should love to know what they make of it I don't know if everyone is like me but I seem to have at least three seperate personalities, all with different tastes and habits. If the vouchers the tills in Sainsburys churn out are anything to go by no one's got the slightest idea what I'm like.

Sorry LizG I should have been more clear - Google are one of the research organisations who are involved (through their '23 and me' project) in the "Construction of a biometric database without consent: allowing tracking and categorisation of every individual and their relatives; a massive reallocation of resources towards collecting and storing data that is mostly not relevant to a person’s care; abandoning of screening criteria in favour of individual feedback of personalised risk predictions; significant scope for misuse of data for “personalised marketing” of healthcare products to individuals or their relatives."

Deedaa you and me both ...! can't be pigeonholed

I can't see what interest my medical records would be to Big Brother, but if I was rushed to hospital in an emergency situation I would hope they show I suffer an anaphylactic reaction to a certain antibiotic!

aka I overheard a GP saying recently - 'The system of wearing a "MedicAlert" bracelet which gave that sort of info (e.g. allergies) worked very well for many years, whatever has happened to that? If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

having just bought one for my daughter as recommended by her doctor, it was farmed out to an American company and ended up costing a lot of unexpected money for customs. So that is what has happened to them; people can't afford them! Also the quality is poor.

What happened was that 'medic alert' bracelets were superseded by modern technology. I think George Orwell and Aldous Huxley have got a lot to answer for!!

When my son became diabetic aged 13, we had a chunky mens type identity bracelet engraved with his medical condition, we didn't get the 'medic alert' one.

I think that if the data is going to be anonimised and used for epidemiological research then I am happy for my data to be used. It may provide information on disease patterns that may help me or my family in future years.

I am already a willing participant in two long term epidemiological studies, the Million Women survey and the Biobank Survey.

My worry is that I do not trust the government or their IT people to keep my data safe and anonimised. They have a very poor track record on such matters. Information on their system will be accessible to too many people to easily and from there to those accessing it downloading files illegally and selling them on is all too easy.

Deedaa & Grannyknot You might think you cannot be pigeon holed or profiled but I think we all can be. Let me explain.
Many years ago a doctor from Stirling University was commissioned to profile the psychological make up of North Sea Saturation divers of which I was one. I stand to be corrected but as I recall it was a multiple choice question paper, around a thousand questions long and called a Phillips test. It was a long time ago and the memory is not as keen as it was. As mischievous young men do (schoolboyish) we answered the questions as contrarily as we could. i.e. we tried to answer the opposite of whatever we possibly could just to try and screw up the results.
At the debrief, once the results had been analysed and diseminated I can tell you that (although I did not admit it at the time) the description and analysis of my personality and habits was spot on. In fact it was too spooky for words, I was flabbergasted at how accurate the profile was but I pretended it was wrong. I can tell you it was not wrong, it detailed exactly how I felt and operated. I have never come accross anything like it before or since and much later 'out in the field' those of us who were profiled agreed that it was uncannily accurate in all our cases. For that reason alone I would never assume nobody could profile any one of us given sufficient data.

I think I'm losing the plot here. Why would anyone want data on a bunch of old elderly mature ladies and what could they possibly do with it that makes some of us alarmed?

Aka, companies targetting direct mail and cold calling using their knowledge of your medical conditions to plan their approach to you. A number of us also have, or have had, medical conditions that for a variety of reasons we would rather keep confidential and are not convinced that there is enough security and protection in the new system.

If too many people are able to access confidential records, some will undoubtedly star investigating it for personal curiosity reasons. 'I wonder why Mrs Nextdoor gets regular visits from the Health Visitor?', and when they have found out the information gets shared with the neighbour on the other side and then drifts into to the wider community or else is used for black amil or control purposes. This sort of behaviour has been recorded where people have had access to police and tax records. Health records will be far more widely accessed than police and tax databases making security on them much more likely to be breachd.

FlicketyB yes, I take the point about nosey neighbours, but blackmail? And any junk mail 'targeted' or otherwise ends up shredded for compost. Re cold callers I have a sign on my door that reads ' I shoot every third cold caller. The second one just left!'