Is there such a thing as confidentiality any more?

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!

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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/

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!

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

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)

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.