David Springate, who works on electronic data base research at the Institute of Population Health, University of Manchester, appeared in a debate with GP Dr Gordon Gancz on BBC1 Saturday Breakfast (link courtesy of TV Eyes). This was in response to his argument in a recent blog Reality check-up: Care.data is good for our health that the risk of exposing individuals' data by big pharma companies was remote. During the debate Dr Ganzc argued that although there are benefits of allowing access to patient information to promote research, doctors have a duty to maintain patient confidentiality. David is convinced that the 'opt in' system, as opposed to 'opt out' system would result in far fewer patients agreeing to have their information available and questions around the quality of information would be raised. He comments, "For a sizeable proportion of the UK population, the sharing of their electronic medical records with academia and Pharma is already a reality and has been for decades."
The Guardian (online) mentions Dr Springate’s blog post in Today in Healthcare.
David's School funded work on electronic medical records database research 'Withdrawing performance indicators: retrospective analysis of general practice performance under UK Quality and Outcomes Framework' was published with Evangelos Kontopantelis, David Reeves, Darren M Ashcroft, Jose M Valderas and Tim Doran.
The Faculty of Medical & Human Sciences news piece can be found on their website
- David Springate