To Opt-Out or Not

The debate about our personal medical records being uploaded to a central database continues to generate discussion.

This article from the Yorkshire Post adds some more background to the discussion, particularly from the privacy point of view.

medConfidential – Keep My Secrets, a privacy advocacy website has put together a number of documents that you can use to Opt-Out of the scheme.

There is not doubt that the original intention was a good idea, but lack of clarity about who has access to sensitive medical information, in particular Big Business, has raise a number of important questions that continue to feed the ongoing discussion.

10 Billion Pounds – the Price of NHS-IT Failure

Abandoned over two years ago the National Programme for IT in the NHS has become one of the biggest government IT project failures of all time and we learn today that the costs of that failure are still increasing.

Amazingly and according to reports from the BBC, The Independent and many other sources, the costs for the abandoned project are still being incurred.

According to the Public Accounts Committee‘s report (PDF version here) it is likely the project will have cost us, the British Taxpayer over £10 Billion!

What is equally amazing is that it looks quite likely that no one single person will be made accountable for this massive waste of money.

We will be studying the report in more detail and will make a further post with some additional comments in the near future.