
One is reminded of Spitting Image sketch...
... "We are the *Don't* Care Bears."
NHS England is still reeling from accusations that the health service – among other things – allowed a consultancy outfit to pump sensitive patient data onto Google servers. Critics have argued that the apparently carefree and careless approach to sharing hospital records with private companies simply highlighted that a …
They flushed £20bn of our taxes down the toilet because they got gimped by the big IT providers. Do you trust them with your personal data now?
I hwve spent the last few years working with HSCIC and I have met the NHS head of data who couldn't see that there was a problem, and who may now be 'spending more time with his family'.
These are well meaning people but they are so hopelessly naive about commercial data organisations that I urge anyone from the UK to opt out asap using the forms:
http://medconfidential.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/caredata_opt-out_letter.pdf
and for a bonus, here is the Downfall version that amused David Nicholson so much
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgrZ9ZlTTIc
So the HSCIC was preceded by the NHSIC, one letter difference between the two, I wonder how much difference there is in the personnel? Seeing as the majority of the now defunct NHS PCT staff are now doing exactly the same job but for GP consortia, I'd guess a significant number of the staff of the NHSIC are now doing the same job for the HSCIC!
Amazing that they now
a) won't comment (or investigate) why they sold off our NHS hospital admission data.
b) expect us to trust them with our data.
Under the HIPAA law in the US, any healthcare organisation is required to provide an 'accounting of disclosures' on demand - in other words, they are required to tell patients with who and why they shared the patient's medical info.
Of course the UK government could have adopted, wholesale, any or all of the HIPAA language they choose but doing that would have eliminated much of the opportunity to create yet another absolute balls-up of the kind so beloved by British governments.
Did anybody think this wouldn't happen? Shaping corners (Apple has rounded corners on lockdown, and Samsung has countered with cut corners, a generic 'shaping' is all we've got left) is a time honored practice when providing services for ones government and citizens. Reducing costs by leveraging the excess capacity of global corporations is the only way you can get square in today's world. If you're not going to charge Google taxes the least you could do is use their services.
That's just common sense. You never use your own money or resources when there's a great big wealthy company to do the work. You get your tax monies worth and allow middlemen service providers to create new parallel growth opportunities by moving laterally across the paradigms of traditional government/citizen relationships.
It's articles like this that just burn me up. Government types running about talking about how important it is to encourage tech growth but boo-hooing when somebody does innovate. I don't know what you guys are thinking, or even if you are. Think about it, those middlemen consultants don't get to keep all that money you know. By the time you've paid the filing fees, 'compliance audits', exotic venue rentals for strategy sessions the Tibetan Fire Dancers and the dead hooker cleanup fees you're only talking 5-7x over market rates.
I don't know how it is over there, but 5-7x over market won't put fuel in my jet or pay for my harem apartment in Paris (I call it Le Cockpit) or even the food for the women I keep there for their protection.
This shit is just getting old you know. I realize the need for flexibility, but if the best you can do to keep our margins up is to scrap the program after 24 months then have us rebuild the exact same thing then in not sure you're the kind of bureaucrat we need in Europe. These half assed commitments to support our industry are making us look bad you know.
I already priced it out and if I have to fabricate identities and educational backgrounds for all these Hindu hamburger chefs it's going to be bad. Their industry has been hit really hard by the whole 'sacred cow' thing and if they get upset they're going to tell everybody what we've done. They can't handle any more stress.
I suggest you take a long weekend and reconsider your commitment to our private sector. Easter is coming soon, why don't you pop on over to my place in Vermont. Easter is a big deal in the US and it's lots of fun. They've bioengineered these pastel colored rabbits that lay BPA free plastic eggs and each egg has a surprise of some sort in it. The eggs with loose diamonds are always a hit with the mothers (wink, wink), but the best eggs have an entirely different kind of surprise, but they are really hard to find. The rules are complicated, but it boils down to certain eggs having either a shekel or a denarii (some have a picture of ten, culturally inclusive asses instead of a denarii, but the idea is the same). One egg has a little plastic brain, one has a pin of gold aviators wings and one has a roofing ax, one has cording supplies and one has iron gutter nails.
If you get a shekel you play the part of a member of the board of labor. If you get a denarii (or picture of 10 asses) you play the part of a foreign trade minister if you get the tools/weapons you play a unionized laborer and if you get the brain you play the role of an elitist Pickett line crossing scab.
The trade minister is asked to mediate the labor dispute, and agrees because the fee is good, but he doesn't really care. The only proven way to prevent leprosy is by letting only pretty women tough your penis and it's time for a leprosy prevention session. Basically, he says do whatever you want with the scab. Then all the laborers (on 2x holiday rates) set up a big crucifix, tied with the cording supplies and cut down the trees for using the roofing axe and they nail the scab to the crucifix with the iron gutter nails and give him a good poke with the spear. By this time the sun is getting low, and if the union laborers are on the job after sundown on Friday they get 4x rates. In the interests of speed and union weight/distance restrictions they huck the scab in a cave and leave. The scab lays in the cave for a few days then comes back as a non union carpenter zombie (he got the plastic brain remember). He says hey, and farewell to his pals and after some wine, makes them promise never to tell that Mary chick where he went. She's just too clingy and her mom is a shrew. The zombie then goes on to establish the most profitable business in history by codifying a bunch of tribal nonsense and charging people to have it read to them. The accessory market alone is bigger than the entire European market. To honor the memory of clingy Mary, patron of all used up ex's, many women now join same sex communes and keep Marys dream of one day finding and reuniting with her lost scab.
It's a touching story. Go check it out (don't worry about the guy playing the zombie carpenter scab. We get the same Israeli company that setup the original event to take care of it. They really do wonders with making a man look dead). Anyway, go have fun, and think about your future. You guys have really got to step up your game. I would rather not have this discussion again.
Run, don't walk, to optout.care-data.info, print out the form and hand it in to your GP's surgery (don't make an appointment specially, although if you happen to be seeing your doc at the time then hand them the form directly and let him/her know what you think)
Fuck 'em all, and the horse they rode in on.
Because it's always another's fault.
That's government all over.
Rubbish people managing to construct a disaster at our expense.
Because it's government you knew it was going to be a disaster (for us).
The anonymised data will be able to be deanonymised, as if by magic (but you just know that system was designed from her start to be insecure)
"We're from the government, we're here to help you"
I was thinking this too, same building, largely the same people.
They apparantly have more safeguards because of the Health and Social Care Act. So ... does that mean that the act forced them into having more safeguards, or that they thought it might now be a good idea to have more safeguards because of the all the data they can hoard/make money off?