In a dramatic betrayal of the public’s confidence and yet another blow to the British employment market, the National Health Service has embarked on a massive outsourcing of confidential patient data processing to India.
The shocking development means that names, addresses, NHS numbers and full transcripts of consultations with doctors will now be processed in India rather than here.
India is notorious for data leaks and has been identified as the source of a large amount of identity theft and bank card fraud in Britain.
The latest move, driven by “budgetary constraints” will now result in NHS records also being exposed to exploitation by criminals in that country.
According to news reports, seven primary care trusts in northeast London, serving more than 1.5 million people, have already sent patient details to contact centres in Pune, western India.
This is in addition to 30 other smaller trusts which already send their data to India for processing, despite Government ministers earlier promising that no private data would be sent overseas.
The full details of what is sent to India makes shocking reading. A full transcript or even a voice recording made by an NHS doctor during a consultation is sent to India to be processed.
While the data is supposed to be anonymous, it is inevitable that names will be mentioned during the consultation and a patient’s NHS number is automatically assigned to the transcript.
It is an easy matter to match up an NHS number with a name on a database which in turn will allow a criminal free access to all manner of personal data including addresses, telephone numbers and so on — a gift horse for identity thieves.
News reports state that workers in India are also producing letters for patients with appointments for cervical smear tests and breast screenings.
All of this data transfer flies in the face of a January 2007 promise by then health minister Caroline Flint who told parliament the computerisation of NHS records would “expressly preclude the transfer of patient information outside the United Kingdom.”
An ITV1 Tonight programme broadcast last year demonstrated how undercover reporters were able to buy health records from a private hospital in London, which had been processed in India.
According to reports, the sellers claimed to have access to thousands of UK medical records.
The Government claims that it can “save money” by outsourcing the data processing to India — but still insists on spending £3 billion a year fighting an illegal and immoral war in Afghanistan.
A British National Party government would halt all illegal foreign wars and use the cash saved to support the creation of UK-based industries which could provide services to the NHS and other institutions.
This would in one move largely eliminate the criminal risk posed by outsourcing, and play a role in ending unemployment in Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment