Posts by Sean Key

UK health secretary Matt Hancock follows delay to GP data grab with campaign called 'Data saves lives'

Re: Opting out

It's better than it was two weeks ago. Try this: https://www.digitalhealthcoachuk.net/gpdproptoutexplained

Re: Mess

Your GP record is meant to be cradle to grave. If your GP Practice told you that, I would be very dissapointed in them.

Some musings on GPDPR

- If you go down the Opt-In road you'll miss a big chunk of the population, which will knacker NHS planning, especially for the most disadvantaged / the heaviest service users, which will make inequalities worse. Deciding on OptIn / OptOut is a challenging ethical problem

- Trying to sneak this through in 6 weeks without telling anyone was a fatal error

- The DPIA remains unpublished, so key protections around avoiding re-identification of anonymised or pseudonymised data can't be assessed

- There's continual lying, or confused messages that look like lying, from the powers-that-be, that don't engender trust

- so I'm opting out until we get both a new cabinet, and a better understanding of the protections, I've also created some web pages with guidance on opting out at: https://www.digitalhealthcoachuk.net/gpdproptoutexplained

BMA and Royal College of GPs refuse to endorse NHS Digital's data grab from surgeries in England

To learn more and download the opt-out forms....

For an easy read guide and downloadable Type1 Opt Out forms please visit https://www.digitalhealthcoachuk.net/gpdproptoutexplained

Loads more info on digital health here too.

Google's Nest halts sales of its fire alarm – because waving your hand switches it off

My fire alarm is mains powered and sits between a light fitting and light bulb, in the ceiling lamp. The remote control is the light switch.

Works a treat.

NHS carelessly slings out care.data plans to 26.5 million Brits

Re: More details

First I thought 'You're wrong', then I read the GPES spec you kindly link to.

I can see there are specific opt-in opt-out codes for diabetic patients to opt in/out of this extract. I can't tell how these interact with the care.data opt in/out, as it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the spec, or in care.data information I've seen.

Considering we're already hitting problems at the coal face with TPP EDMS opt n/out versus SCR opt in and opt out, this can only get more complicated as time goes on, leading to more errors.

Sony BDP-S185 Blu-ray player

Don't make the mistake I did though - be pessimistic not optimistic

I bought an earlier one of these Sony players. While it is good hardware, the net services have never lived up to expectations. Mine has BBC IPlayer on and Demand 5, which run really well on it.

When I bought it though I was expecting ITVPlayer and 4OD as well, to arrive as future updates. Updates do arrive, but they are generally for obscure German golfing channels and other rubbish.

There's even a Facebook campaign for similarly let down customers called "COME ON SONY, when is ITV Player and 4OD coming to Sony Bravia Internet TVs", for example, a recent post from there is:

<snip> but why oh why have Sony just given us access to Wired, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com and Style.com et al? It's like they've looked at the half empty shelves and decided to fill up the gaps with whatever they could pick up at the local car boot sale. Do Sony ever discuss with their customers what they'd like to see/ recieve/use their equipment for? Please, please, talk to your customer base and make this a two way process. If Sony are paying for the above content I'd love to meet the exec who made the choice for their short list"... a german golfer maybe...

So, when deciding what to buy, don't make the mistake I did though - be pessimistic not optimistic if your interested in things like 4OD, ITV Player, NetFlix etc.

Mine does do LoveFilm now (after 3 years).

HMS Ark Royal goes under the hammer

Top Gear

Top Gear should buy it, convert an old Ford Escort into a VTOL, thus allowing Jermey Clarkson et al to bomb Libya...

Government claims on immigration ignore IT industry

@ Mike Bell

I had to help my wife study for that test, and I completely agree with you.

ePetition to abolish Intra Company Transfer Visas

There is a petition on the 10 Downing St website to demand the abolition of Intra Company Transfer Visas here:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Abolish-ICTs/

Please have a read and sign up if you agree. According to Computer Weekly reporting figures obtained by the Professional Contractors Group, something like 28,000 workers were brought into the UK by firms using ICT visas last year.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/08/03/237149/big-business-abusing-migrant-worker-law.htm

British Council faces legal action for offshoring

On a partially related note...

Please read the petition to abolish Intra Company Transfer Visas at

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Abolish-ICTs/

And if you agree please sign up and forward the link to your friends

it now has over 80 signatures

Tech can make Britain Great again

Abolish ICT Petition - thanks to those who have signed so far...

Thanks to those who have signed so far.....

Please consider signing my petition to have Intra Company Transfers abolished, which is on the 10 Downing Street web site at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Abolish-ICTs/

@ AC 11:39

"It's all very well asking for the government to impose artificial barriers but that will only save their jobs in the short term as it leaves the country less competitive on the worldwide stage."

Cheers for that. What I'm asking for in the petition is to plug the loophole thats allowing firms to make whole departments redundant and ship in cheaper overseas labour using Intra Company Transfer Visas to plug the gap.

As some others posters have noted I can't compete with that.

If they want to compete offshore, thats fine by me, if they want to come over individually and set up in business thats fine by me too. What I can't compete with (and shouldn't have to) is a corporation shipping in 100s of them en masse wrapped in cotton wool.

Shouldn't have too because whats going on is bypassing the migration points system and making a mockery of Gordon Brown's pledge of 'British Jobs for British Workers', by which he meant 'EU jobs for EU workers' I guess....

I'm just trying to highlight that the Government are not keeping their promises in this area.

Exactly, and on a related topic...

Please consider signing my petition to have Intra Company Transfers abolished, which is on the 10 Downing Street web site at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Abolish-ICTs/

"This scheme allows companies to bypass UK immigration rules and import non-EU workers into the UK, displacing UK/EU staff. This scheme bypasses other schemes such as the skilled migrants points system, which work fairly based on national need and individual migrants skills. This is allowing the displacement of tens of thousands of workers, particulary in IT. It is unfair on UK (and EU) workers as these shipped in workers enjoy tax (and often accomodation) benefits not available to workers living in the UK due to the local cost of living and tax regime. This is raising UK unemployment by the tens of thousands and undermining the UKs future competetiveness in Information Technology as skills are built up here and then return abroad. This scheme is fundamentally unfair. No one can object to the work being out-sourced to be carried about abroad, but this mass importing of non-EU labour to have the work done here, is unfair."

Blighty to become old-time Inundation Nation

"We are now having to learn to live with levels of flooding" .. makes sense to me

"We are now having to learn to live with levels of flooding that are beyond most people’s living memory, something that most of us have forgotten how to do."

....or switched off when our grandparents told us stories of how they survived, unless they forgot to....

I think the sentence makes some sense.