NO2ID

http://redigitaleditions.com/activemagazine/welcome/doc/doc070213.asp

from this week's Doctor Magazine (for GPs):

The problem with this is it assumes that all patients have been told avbout it and not said no. In reality that rarely happens. If the letter is sent per houshold then not all will get to see it. Because once it goes nation patients will be able to view it on-line then there is a chance that those who want to intrude into the health of their partner will not allow their partner to say no.

Have they made any allownaces for patients to go in and view their records? Are they really saying thousands of patients turning up at their GP practice to view their records will not have an impact on other patients? Will the patient have to pay for it (currently the GP can charge £10 if you want to view the records). Will the patients be seen within a specified time? If you turn up after 7 weeks but are told you need to wait 3 weeks to view the records, will the upload still take place?

Will all those under the age of 16 be allowed to say no if they are mentaly compitent? 14 year olds have the same rights we do. Will GPs try and scare them into sharing it? <y previous GPs tried scaring me into shariong my medical records then they could not back up what they claimed would happen becuase I said no.

There is also the wording the use to get patients not to say no. For example they claim records will only be accessed on a 'need to know' basis. NHS Scotland claimed that, yet nobody in NHS Scotland seems to no why withholding the fact you are on viagra or antidepressants from a receptionist will effect your level of care, yet the receptionist is allowed acces to it.

The receptionist are also the people that check to see who has been looking at your record. That means if you attend a GUM clinic and allow them access to it, the receptionist at your practice will be allowed to know you attened a GUM clinic and how often.

The 'sensible' solution would be to ask patioents as they make appointments, that way they they can have a quick look at the records and say what can be uploaded and what can not be. By allowing patients to veto data it would allow patients that are pressured by otheres to share their records to see the GP without it showing up on the web space.

You should also not the word initialy. The plan is to put everything on the spine gradually increasing it so that the patient sleep walks into having their entire record on line.

Patients that do not opt-out should remember they will not be allowed to know who knows what.

Yup, it's crap.

Which IMNSHO is a bit spineless (sorry) of the GP leaders. It should be de facto an opt-in, not the other way around. This way DoH gets what they want anyway.
Suppose that after these "pilots" the workload is judged as not excessive (by DoH naturally), mostly due to the fact that most patients will neither get a notification in the first instance nor, as they work for a living, would have to take time off work in order to view their records (Saturday not being a day the surgery is open)], nor given a way to not have their details uploaded without a visit to the surgery. This would then be considered a plus point and off we go.
I personally have never met my doctor, my previous one having died in a road accident (and even then I didn't meet him; last time I went to a GP surgery was to get a wholly unnecessary sick note for 2 days absence which the receptionist gave me from a pile of pre-signed forms). I don't even know his name. The last time I went to a doctor was for a polio sugar cube over 20 years ago. Yet I don't want my records uploaded (not that there's much on them!) on general principle, let alone for any possible information-that-shouldn't-be-available-to-all-and-sundry reasons...

Its taken a couple of months. but I have finally got my GP's to agree to 93c1 & 93c3 Don't upload to spine, don't share locally.
I have also managed to have all info on the patient care summary record removed as it was inapplicable for any future treatment!

I was in a practice that had 13,000 patients on it's list. Because most GPs will not work weekends or bank holidays this means that there will only be about 40 days for patients to check their record and 'discuss' with their GP what will be uploaded and who will have access to it (if they are like my previous GPs it will be a case of the GP telling the patient what they will be sharing and not allowing the patient much choice). That is 325 patients per day. Asuming that takes each patient 5 min and it is a case of a patient enters the room at the same time the previous patient leaves that is 27 hours to get through all patients (Last time I check there was only 24 hours in a day and the practice does not open 24 hours a day). Assuming ther were 3 GPs doing it that would still take 9 hours without a break and without treating patients.

I know not all patients will check or will be old enough to check, chances are a lot of people reading this will not check and allow their info to be shared. Even if it was half of the patients, that would still tak over 4 hours a day. My previous GPs claimed that they had to tell admin staff my medical info because the 2 min it would take them to type/write the info was "too long a time", are they really going to find an extra 4-5 hours per day to screen the summary?

It makes the claim that this is enough time a bit of a joke and patients will not get the chance, especially those that work or if the children are meant to be in school (children should be able to veto their info going on line if they are mentialy capable and if not, they should be allowed to take the info off when the are mentally capable).