to be appalled that the NHS is to give patient data to high street pharmascists

[mistymeanour]

Happened to see this today www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11790711/Boots-Tesco-and-Superdrug-to-get-access-to-NHS-medical-records.html

Apparently based on a study of 15 patients they are going ahead with giving the summary data on all NHS records to high street pharmacies such as Boots and Lloyd's etc. I am appalled - I don't want shop assistants having access to my data or otherpeople and various firms. I feel this is a complete breach of patient trust. We were not consulted. I filed a refusal form with my GP for the previous Tory push to give drug companies and insurance firms data but this has just been announced and is to roll out next month with no warning!

Apparently the summary data contans details of meds you have been prescribed but I know a medical summariser and the summary includes details of your conditionsand treatment. What if you don't want someone to know about a rape and abortion, or depression and mental illness you had meds for etc. Will people be only able to use the NHs in return for all their data? What ever happenedto confidentiality?

[mateysmum]

No way will companies like Boots be able to use confidential data for marketing. Pharmacists are highly ethically regulated and there are regulatory specialists within the business who also have legal obligations. The upside of preventing adverse drug reactions is worth it. Pharmacists are far better qualified to monitor prescriptions than doctors.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I'm not sure that's going to stop a lot of people believing that Tesco can sell your medical records.

[youarekiddingme]

Pharmacists are highly trained medical professionals. Not for me as there isn't any medical history really but if I took my DS in for advice and medication it would be great they can access his medical records.

What was very concerning for me is that tesco set up DS prescription to go to them without consent. (We originally set it up and cancelled it when it wasn't working for us - it was cancelled over 3 years ago).
So I'm at GPs collecting his repeat in 30° heatwave and they can't find prescription to discover it's at tesco other side of town.
I demanded a full investigation and even tesco admit it was an admin error and was set up electronically without consent. They are apparently doing dpsome more staff training.

[Janethegirl]

Dispensing GPs and cross checking any drug interactions yourself is the way I prefer to go. Not generally impressed by shop pharmacists though.

[Powaqa]

When my usual pharmacist insisted on doing a drug review he questioned the need for every drug I was on and recommended I stopped a few of them .

It really wasn't any of his business why I was on them - my cardiologist, neurologist and GP all felt the need for me to be on them and I trusted them far more than him.

I took my business elsewhere. I have about a dozen pharmacies where I can get my medication from, I am happy to pick and mix befoe I let them have access to my medical records

Reading the Pharmacist Statutory committee investigations is a bloody eyeopener as well

[albertcamus]

youarekiddingme my local Tesco are exactly the same as this. I told them to cancel dm from their records & now organise my own repeat prescription in the pharmacy next door to my GP.

Looking at the state of the Tesco pharmacy staff, including the arrogant prat of a pharmacist, I wouldn't trust them with my shopping list, let alone prescription.

[frumpet]

I am really shocked that people are equating pharmacists with shop assistants , do you realise what pharmacists actually are ? how long and hard they have trained , that they are strictly regulated by a governing body just as Doctors are ? Do you seriously think they are going to throw it all away just for the sake of selling you some vitamins ?

[Birdsgottafly]

""I don't see the issue - pharmacists already deal with your medication""

Not if you are on some meds, issued by Hospital Doctors, Anti-retrovirals spring to mind, but there are lots of people, who are just treated at Specialist Hospitals/Clincs.

There will have to be lots of questions answered and reassurances that if you don't give permission for your records to be accessed, then you can still purchase medications.

You can hear everything through the walls of the "private room", so privacy won't be to guaranteed.

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

So just decline.

Honestly, the issues around data transfer and security are more worrying than Miss X at Y pharmacy seeing you once had to take a course of antibiotics for your chronic bacterial vaginosis.

[Janethegirl]

I trust more hospital pharmacists than shop ones as they tend to be more 'peer reviewed'. Shop ones tend to be a little bit arrogant and think they are it.
When I buy OTC stuff they always ask if you are on meds, I always lie and say no. I'm taking it and it's my decision.
I had one say I couldn't buy eye drops as they'd interfere with my contact lenses and discolour them. I use daily disposables. How is that relevant.

[titchy]

Powaqa - did you ever stop to think WHY the pharmacist questioned your drugs? Shits and giggles? Or maybe because your neurologist had prescribed something contraindicated by a drug another Dr had prescribed for you....

Doctors are NOT experts in how drugs work in the human body - pharmacists are. The training is as stringent as for medics and dentists, they are regulated and although there will be a very small proportion who are investigated by the GPC it is no more than Drs investigated by GMC.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

There will have to be lots of questions answered and reassurances that if you don't give permission for your records to be accessed, then you can still purchase medications.

Given the SCR is a document that has existed for a while, quite successfully, with conditions attached as to it's use, I'd imagine that the chances of not getting your prescription filled are about the same as your local A&E department refusing to treat you because you've opted out. Although I'm willing to be corrected on that.

[Powaqa]

Titchy - I know quite a bit about pharmacists - many of my friends are pharmacists. I've worked in a pharmacy and I used to be involved with the YPG, the RPSGB and a pharmacist recruitment agency. I know about drug interactions etc. I spoke to a trusted friend who reviewed them with me.

I know how much training they have, the knowledge gained and the professionalism most of them have, but at the end of the day they work for money making companies - it's those I don't trust.

[GozerTheGozerian]

Pharmacists have ethical and professional responsibilities above and beyond their obligations to their employer, and they cannot undertake anything that they feel would go against their code of conduct. Even if it means acting against the best interests of their employer - their responsibility is to the patient. They're in a unique position of being an employee but also an independent entity - they're not going to blindly follow corporate direction without carefully weighing up any professional impact.

There is no way that this information will be available for commercial / marketing purposes - it's about patient care and easing pressure on the NHS by ensuring more pharmacy intervention where appropriate - this leads to less pressure on GPs and A&E, improved care, better management of chronic conditions and fewer prescribing errors to name but a few.

But if you don't like it, opt out, it's no big deal surely?

[Pumpkinette]

I have no issues with a qualified pharmacist accessing my medical records. They are trained professionals and would be able to spot things that Dr may miss (as stated by previous poster re: existing medication and antibiotics)

My SIL is a hospital pharmacist and she knows her stuff when it comes to medicine. I got put on course of long term antibiotics by my Dr and she knew straight away what they were for before I told her. She also told me of some side effects the Dr failed to mention and an alternative I could request should such side effect occur.

I do think they should have to ask first before accessing your medical records.

[YeOldeTrout]

I wanted to put together a research proposal to get hold of confidential patient data. To figure out if a certain way of doing things saves money (that means it could save you & me taxpayers money). So we need to follow individual patients thru the system after they've had the service, to see if it really works or if the patients just go use another part of the NHS more often.

It's too tough, we can't do it. The ethics approval, the consent forms, the long applications, the PPI, the 18 months to write the application, the 12 month wait for a decision while funding for the service we want to evaluate is not guaranteed, 3-6 month wait after that for the money to be released so we can actually employ people, making sure we have a good scientific design, trying to pull a good economist & a good statistician on board along with data analysts, the 3% chance of getting NIHR funding.

So it won't happen. So who knows if the service is a good one or not. The NHS isn't allowed either to follow the patient thru their own system because people are so paranoid about their "privacy". Then folk yell about how the NHS is cumbersome & moves glacially and nobody knows what really works. I guess folk like to complain but secretly prefer inefficiency.

Almost any entity can buy medical records if they can convince the NHS it's for health research purposes.

Jesus wept. I wish it were just a matter of paying money to get answers.

[BearFoxBear]

www.england.nhs.uk/2015/08/10/response-dt-article/

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

We would like to make clear that the article published by the Daily Telegraph, ‘Tesco can see your medical records’ contains a number of inaccuracies

No shit. As a slight aside, I do think they do need to make people a bit more aware of the difference between the SCR and care.data. I suspect quite a lot of people confuse the two which might be confusing the issue slightly.

[achieve6]

Thanks Bear.

[RunnerHasbeen]

I'm in Scotland with complex health needs and needed medication on New Years day. The pharmacist asked if she could look at my records and it was quick and easy (was transferred by NHS24, so perhaps she could see a summary through them). If you want to opt out, fair enough, but don't force people who it can help to have their records more private. What would I have done otherwise? Given the pharmacist my own layman description of my surgeries and medical history in front of the queue of people? A&E?

If you want to get het up about something, at least think of an alternative.

[Pneumometer]

We would like to make clear that the article published by the Daily Telegraph, ‘Tesco can see your medical records’ contains a number of inaccuracies

Unfortunately, the utter debacle of care.data ("we won't sell your data to insurance companies except when we do") means that a lot of sensible initiatives, like this one, are getting caught in the cross-fire. The HSCIC are partially responsible for this because they have played very fast and loose with differences between primary and secondary uses, so a lot of people are going to end up opting out of the SCR (which has excellent governance) because of concerns about care.data (which doesn't).

I hope that the now-supplanted NHSIC enjoyed the couple of grand they got for the sale of records to actuaries, because the damage that one transaction has done to medical informatics in this country for a generation is incalculable.

[BearFoxBear]

That's true and I agree, but I also think that the media has a lot to answer for. The amount of shoddy and inaccurate journalism in this field is enraging.

[Pneumometer]

The amount of shoddy and inaccurate journalism in this field is enraging.

In is, but the amount of "don't worry your pretty little heads about it" patronising from the informatics crowd provides the other partner in the FUD tango. HSCIC said that they never sold data to commercial companies. It turned out that they were selling data to commercial companies. Had they put their hand up to it at the outset, the journalistic stampede wouldn't have had time to get going. Unfortunately, they didn't, and it did. The two successive Ben Goldacre columns - he being a huge advocate of secondary uses - on the topic are a treat.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/21/nhs-plan-share-medical-data-save-lives

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/28/care-data-is-in-chaos

Once things are in this sort of mess, the claim the primary uses are better governed than secondary uses, although true, doesn't get a chance to be heard.

[LionessAtHeart]

Goodness this is as bad as when people were being hysterical and paranoid that care takers would see their medical records if medical records were shared between hospitals.

Pharmacists not only take 5yrs to qualify and require a masters degree as well as additional work placements and exams ontop, they also have to be registered and governed in the same way as Drs, nurses and midwives. They loose the ability to practice as a pharmacist anywhere if they don't behave professionally. Even misbehaving in their personal life, in a way completely unconnected to their work, can cost them their career. The GPhC take a hard-line and maintain exceptionally high standards.

The article saying pharmacists were unsure about consent will have ment they didn't know if verbal was enough or whether they should be using a form to prove it - after all if a patient gives permission but then later turns around and says I didn't give you permission, the pharmacists whole career is on the line.

Also pharmacists working in supermarket pharmacies are often also working in an nhs hospital pharmacy too. They are already used to having access to more detailed nhs records than will be accessible when working in a community pharmacy.

[PennyHassett]

I've un-hid this thread to share this...

www.pharmacistsupport.org/pharmacists-the-most-trusted-professionals/?utm_source=E-news+%28master+list%29&utm_campaign=fb530dabe1-PS_e_news_July_August_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_785b00cc2f-fb530dabe1-181652093