NHS disregards patient requests to opt out of sharing medical records

The NHS has disregarded tens of thousands of requests by patients to opt out of the health service’s system of sharing medical records. Officials have admitted that not sharing the data would affect the treatment patients received – such as cancer screening services.

Under guidelines released by the NHS last year, patients had been told they could, without affecting their care, “object to any information containing data that identifies you from leaving the secure environment … this includes information from all places you receive NHS care, such as hospitals”.

However in a letter to MPs, seen by the Guardian, Kingsley Manning, chief executive of the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) which collects patient data, admits that “none of the objections registered by patients … have been enacted”