To find it creepy that Serco, a big private sector organisation, has been given information about the status of my lady parts by my GP?

[BoffinMum]

So I open a letter inviting me for a cervical screening test, to find it has been sent to me by the large private sector organisation Serco in conjunction with the NHS (both logos at the top).

Which is creepy as I haven't given permission for Serco to have access to my medical records, date of birth, cervical screening status or in fact anything at all. In fact a couple of years ago I filled in a form opting out of any online information sharing whatsoever. Yet it seems they know an awful lot about my girl bottom status.

Being me, I immediately complained to the Department of Health and got the following response:

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Our ref: xxxx

Dear Dr BoffinMum

Thank you for your correspondence of 23 September about your medical details. I have been asked to reply.

The Department of Health provides strategic leadership for the NHS in England. Patient records are the responsibility of individual NHS organisations, which are legally responsible for complying with data protection laws and should ensure that patient records are not put at risk. The Department of Health expects the NHS to comply fully with data protection laws, just like any other public body.

You should therefore raise your concerns directly with the practice manager at your GP surgery.

I am sorry that I cannot be more directly helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Ted Colegate
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health

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Please do not reply to this email. To contact the Department of Health, please visit the 'Contact DH' section on the GOV.UK website.

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AIBU unreasonable to think that a letter with 'NHS' and 'Serco' plastered over the top should in fact be the responsibility of the DoH? And that it is well creepy to have your cervical screening status handed on to a private sector organisation without your knowledge or consent?

I am sure if Ted 'ring of freshness' Colgate had a cervix he would find this creepy too.

Not good is it.

YANBU but it is just par for the course now. Recently, DH needed to see a consultant and got referred, not to the hospital, but to a 'referral centre' run by a similar organisation. The medical staff there were poached from the NHS but the reception staff etc were not.

Serco also operate in my local hospital and they are just shocking, e.g. trying to feed patients solid food shortly before an operation under general anaesthetic and seeming honestly puzzled as to why this was a problem.

...But I think the logic will be, technically your GP is also a private contractor, and there is probably some clause about passing information on on a 'need to know' basis to private contractors. I'm guessing this can't be illegal; they will have sewn it up somehow.

Creepy? Really? An initiative that is purely to save lives, and reduce cancer rates, which has been outsourced to save money (and therefore have more money for more life saving) and this is something you think should be stressed over?

Strange slant on it. A private computer rather than a public computer spewed out a mailshot to you reminding you to have screening that could save you from dying a slow and painful death. How terrible for you.

Around here Serco clean the public toilets

However i do hope this will not put you off going for your smear - tis very important (I would definately be dead if it wasn't for regular smears)

I think the reason I worry is because I see a dystopian future with private sector businesses able to abuse data like these for their own profit making, nefarious ends, by linking databases and/or selling information to third parties, which might have an unintended consequence.

sorry but LOL at "ring of freshness"....in these circumstances!

YANBU, BTW

It's a worrying trend. I've recently received a letter from the local Commisioning Care Group about my medical records being digitised and accessible via a password by 'healthcare and social care' workers. No explanation of who precisely this means. There is an option to opt out which I will be doing.

Peasant, do they actually carry out operations?

I know it's silly but it has actually put me off.
I think I might have one anonymously somewhere else (can you do that?)

I thought serco ran the prison vans.

Where in the country are you? Serco is part of the PPI with Kings and Guys and St Thomas trust. If you are in South London it may well be because your GP is in this trust's catchment. I think they also have some hospitals in Bedford too

Thesun, fair enough not to want to be on that notes system, but do think twice before you definitely pull out. At least now when someone looks at your electronic record there is information about who has logged in to it, whereas anyone can look at your paper record with no information at all about who has handled it.

medconfidential.org/whats-the-story/

It's just the beginning sadly. Everything is now up for grabs including your private medical records.

Joanofarcitrave - Mmn, an interesting consequence I hadn't considered.

Your follow up post gives you an air of a tin foil hatted conspiracy theorist.
And are you trying to get people to get their names off the cervical screening reminder list?

My goodness, yes, Peppi. In an era of healthcare being privatised to create "opportunities for profit" and where patients are considered "consumers", how awful that one patient does actually behave like a consumer and question who she's buying from.

WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE FANJOS?!

Go private then. If you don't want to avail of the nhs and the way they do things, act like a consumer and buy your healthcare at full price, without the huge subsidies you get.

I don't get the problem. I appreciate concerns about privatisation and quality of service but something as mundane as a mailshot I could not give a monkeys about who administrates it as long as they adhere to data protection rules and if they don't I expect them to be prosecuted.
As for sharing information with health professionals I am heartily sick of paper files and having to continuously go over the same information again and again and fearing that I sm getting it wrong. I want my and my children's health professionals to have easy, consistent access to our records wherever we gave received treatment. It is ludicrous in this day and age that if my child is created in an out of area hospital I have to personally carry a paper letter to my GP surgery to ensure the incident is createdtracked.

Would it not be for the regional NHS Trust to look into, rather than the Dept of Health?

at 'ring of freshness'.

umm, rather than 'created' I meant 'treated'

The NHS and the way they do things?

That will be the new NHS model and the new way they do things, under the politically driven changes made last year by MPs, who we get to vote for.

I find I have some interest in how the NHS do things, given as it's mine (and yours, and everyone else's). And if I don't like what's being done, I feel minded to change it - not turn my back as I would on a shoe shop.

The 2012 Health and Social Care Act effectively privatised the NHS. I really hadn't twigged this until I started reading 'NHS SOS' - and I'm a bit of a public policy nerd so I really should know better. The change was stealthy as they shifted so much after the (already terrifying) white paper and it was basically a fait accompli.

With the introduction of GP clinical commissioning groups, CCGs were forced to hand over all back office administration (and frankly most of the strategic stuff too) to private organisations like SERCO. Hence the other posters mention of 'referral centres' and your letter. There is no longer any real distinction between these private companies and the public face of the NHS.... Hence their data sharing probably did not break data protection rules as it will all be covered by the right type of contracts and provisions.

So YANBU.... But welcome to the new NHS reality.

PeppiNephrine, how on earth do you know whether the OP benefits from subsidies, you have no clue about her finances? Or are only higher rate tax payers allowed to have an opinion on how our NHS is run?

I have a background in Health Records and I constantly hear people complaining about paper files and organisations not sharing information. Yet, when trusts, practices etc. try to link up to national systems/databases to create a 'one patient, one record' scenario that somehow is also wrong.

Your GP and Hospital records are to a large extent already digitised (especially primary care records) and accessible via a smart card/pin/password.