Women who smoke and have high blood pressure are 20 times more likely to have a brain haemorrhage than non-smoking men with healthy blood pressure, new research suggests.

ADS

NHS 111 call centre workers could be given access to patients’ private medical records.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that in future staff would be able get hold of the files as long as they sought patients’ permission beforehand.
He believes this would help staff diagnose patients and also alert them to any life-threatening allergies to medication such as aspirin or penicillin.
But privacy campaigners said giving call centre staff access to such highly sensitive information was a ‘massive risk to patient privacy.’
Phil Booth, of Med-Confidential, which has been set up to protect patients’ confidentiality, warned that employees may be tempted to share the files.
Officials at the Department of Health said the proposals would not happen for several years and insisted that patients would always be asked for their permission first.
The Government is currently creating a database of medical files to enable GPs, hospital staff and paramedics to share information to improve treatment for patients.
If they arrive in A&E unconscious or have dementia and have nobody with them staff have no way of knowing whether they have any long-term illnesses or allergies to medication.
From next spring, casualty units will have access to electronic versions of patients’ medical records.
Officials hope to roll this out to NHS 111 call centre workers within a few years.Emma Carr, deputy director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘Opening up our medical records to thousands of NHS staff across the country clearly poses a massive risk to patient privacy.
‘Barely a week seems to go by without a new raft of people being able to access our most intimate medical details yet patients continue to be denied basic information about what is happening or given the choice to opt-out.

The new 111 advice line is endangering lives by taking ambulance crews away from real emergencies, it has been claimed

The 111 service is manned by unqualified workers - including some teenagers - with just two weeks’ training, who transfer more serious calls on to a handful of nurses seated nearby.
Mr Booth said: ‘Giving a whole bunch of people access to medical records is – in terms of security – a very bad idea.
‘Your doctor has a massive professional duty of care. Someone who is working in a call centre – no matter how much you train them to do call centre tasks – is not going to have the same duty of confidentiality and care to the individual.
‘They may pass on data. If you give more and more people access to medical records how are you going to prevent breaches of security?

ADS

Share this article :

Share on FB Tweet Share on G+ Submit to Digg