Volume 1

The Electronic patient record : sixth report of session 2006-07 / House of Commons, Health Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee.
Date:
2007
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The Electronic patient record : sixth report of session 2006-07 / House of Commons, Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    94. Questions were also raised about how effective “sealed envelopes” would be at protecting confidentiality. The Assistant Information Commissioner told the Committee that his organisation was concerned about whether sealed information could be accessed in an emergency and whether patients would be able to see audit trails showing who had accessed this information.’” 95. However, officials defended the efficacy of the planned systems. Dr Gillian Braunold told the Committee that “sealed envelope” systems had been demonstrated to a conference of sexual health clinicians, a group which she described as “the most challenging...of all that exist” and “the most sceptical” about plans for protecting sensitive information. Dr Braunold explained that exactly half of this group expressed positive support for the NCRS in light of planned consent arrangements.’ 96. Other witnesses expressed concern that information in “sealed envelopes” would be made available for research and other purposes via the Secondary Uses Service. Professor Douwe Korff argued that particularly sensitive information should not be accessible in this way, even following anonymisation or pseudonymisation, as this would breach European law.'?? The Department of Health subsequently clarified that while “sealed” information will be available to the Secondary Uses Service, “sealed and locked” information will not.!”° We consider these issues further in Chapter 5. Security systems 97. Witnesses also expressed concerns about whether SCR data, and other information held on the National Data Spine, could be held securely. These concerns fell into two broad categories which we consider below: e One set of concerns related to the technical security of the national systems, for example the likelihood of the system being infiltrated by hackers and the possibility of data theft from the SCR; and e Separate concerns were raised about operational security, also referred to as the “human factor”; such concerns focussed on how access to the SCR would be controlled and monitored, particularly across an organisation as large, complex and federated as the NHS. Technical security 98. The SCR is one element of the National Data Spine supplied by BT. Access to the SCR is via the New National Network for the NHS (N3), also supplied by BT.'” The Committee does not have sufficient technical knowledge to make specific judgements on the external 123 Q 221 124 See Q 67. Dr Braunold described a survey in which members of the Sexual Health Conference were asked whether they would support their local service making use of NCRS systems, on the basis of consent systems which included the “sealed envelope”. On a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much), exactly 50% responded with either 4 or 5. 125 Q218 126 Ev 120 (HC 422-11) 127 The combined value of the contracts for the National Spine and the N3 network is £1.15 billion.