NHS U-turn over deletion of patients' records
Kable
Published: 27 May 2009 09:24 BST
NHS Connecting for Health has changed its policy on deleting summary care records.
Following discussions with the Information Commissioner's Office, the agency in charge of the NHS National Programme for IT has given patients the right to delete an SCR as long as it has not been used.
The right will also apply to records with no information, even when some should have been entered because of a medical intervention. But CfH said it will not apply to records which have been used because they may be needed in the future for legal purposes.
Previously, CfH had intended that, while patients had the right of veto over the creation of a SCR, once it was set up it could not be deleted, only masked.
The SCR will provide an electronic record with an overview of a patient's care, that can accessed, with consent, by staff in England's NHS. Its implementation is now four years overdue.
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"Following discussions with the information commissioner we have agreed that anyone can now request that their record is deleted," said a CfH spokesperson. "In the event that a record was accessed as part of someone's healthcare, a record of that access needs to be kept in case there was a subsequent investigation of the performance of a clinician or a dispute about the facts. This is in the best interests of both patients and clinicians."
The Information Commissioner's Office confirmed it had met Connecting for Health to discuss the permanent deletion of records, and commented: "People want the assurance that they can restrict who can access their personal details in NHS electronic records."
It added: "We are pleased that as a result of these discussions CfH have found a way to ensure that these records are permanently removed from the database when appropriate and we are continuing to talk to them about how this is put into practice."
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