Lead: opening up clinical health data – who benefits?

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Tim Davies analyses the announcement to open up more government data and raises concern over its motivations and implications:

“The first measures in the Cabinet Office’s paper are explicitly not about open data as public data, but are about the restricted sharing of personal medical records with life-science research firms – with the intent of developing this sector of the economy. With a small nod to “identifying specified datasets for open publication and linkage”, the proposals are more centrally concerned with supporting the development of a Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) which will contain interlinked ‘unidentifiable, individual level’ health records, by which I interpret the ability to identify a particular individual with some set of data points recorded on them in primary and secondary care data, without the identity of the person being revealed.

“The place of this in open data measures raises a number of questions, such as whether the right constituencies have been consulted on these measures and why such a significant shift in how the NHS may be handing citizens personal data is included in proposals unlikely to be heavily scrutinised by patient groups? In the past, open data policies have been very clear that ‘personal data’ is out of scope – and the confusion here raises risks to public confidence in the open data agenda. Leaving this issue aside for the moment, we also need to critically explore the evidence that the release of detailed health data will “reinforce the UK’s position as a global centre for research and analytics and boost UK life sciences”. In theory, if life science data is released digitally and online, then the firms that can exploit it are not only UK firms – but the return on the release of UK citizens personal data could be gained anywhere in the world where the research skills to work with it exist.”

An interesting analysis – can you add more?

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Who’s Who: Bill Morgan, special adviser on policy development

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Today’s Who’s Who profile on Bill Morgan comes from a report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which looked at the links between Morgan and his previous employers:

“Mr Morgan came to [Andrew] Lansley’s office in July 2010 having been director for the health arm of Mandate Communications, a public relations company which has since merged with MHP communications. Continue reading →

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Question: How many walk-in centres are being closed?

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The Yorkshire Post reports on the closure of an NHS walk-in centre in Leeds with a brief mention of wider plans.

“NHS Leeds said the Department of Health did not intend to continue delivering services from commuter walk-in centres and this means the Leeds centre will close. Centres in Manchester, Newcastle and London have already been axed.

“It will shutdown on November 30 and is the latest service in West Yorkshire to be hit by cuts. Already opening hours have been cut at other centres in Halifax, Todmorden and Dewsbury.”

A quick search finds walk-in centres also closing in Nottinghamshire.

An FOI to the Department of Health asking for a list of planned walk-in closures with dates and full addresses may help paint a national pattern. However, the decision to close lies with Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and many appear to have held or be holding consultations, so it would be worth also looking into how many consultations are still being held. This advanced search gives some clues.

Are you investigating this? Let us know how we can help.

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Can you help? Researching the link between capsaicin (pepper spray) deaths and stimulants

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I am looking for post mortem data on deaths caused by capsaicin (pepper spray). I intend to analyse the data for links to the involvement of stimulants (particularly pseudoephedrine, methamphetamine and cocaine). My rationale is based on Mendelson et al, (2009) as indicated in my blog post on the topic (duplicated below).

If you can help me find this information please use the comment box below or email me. Continue reading →

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Who’s Who: Mark Simmonds

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Mark Simmonds, October 2009

Mark Simmonds, October 2009, image from Wikimedia Commons

As a first attempt at our ‘Who’s Who’ series following key individuals in health, I thought it might be worth starting with Mark Simmonds, the Conservative MP and former health spokesman. This was kicked off by a post on Sturdyblog which succinctly gives some backround:

“Mark Simmonds is the former Conservative Shadow Health Spokesman and a vocal supporter of the government’s controversial Health and Social Care Bill. Circle Health pay Mr Simmonds £50k a year (on top of his £65k MP salary) for 10 hours’ work a month, as “an advisor”. Continue reading →

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Link: “Evidence” of NHS privatisation plans

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Channel 4 news reports on documents which GPs say represent “firm evidence that the government is planning to privatise the National Health Service as part of its reforms.”:

“Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) GP committee, said that the document was quite explicit in suggesting that the government was going to create a market for private companies to come in and take over these services and that commissioning groups would be too small do without support. Continue reading →

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Link: NHS watchdog faces investigation

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From The Guardian:

“The watchdog responsible for overseeing NHS hospitals and care homes is being urgently investigated by the Department of Health over a series of alleged failures that could have risked patient care.

“The [Care Quality Commission]’s chief executive, Cynthia Bower, spent last Thursday morning being questioned by Una O’Brien, the health department’s permanent secretary, before a team of Whitehall officials descended on the watchdog’s headquarters in the City that afternoon.

“The inquiry coincides with investigations by the National Audit Office and the Commons public accounts committee.”

And background:

“The Guardian has established that:

“• The CQC misled parliament in its annual report, overstating the number of inspections and reviews of the NHS, independent healthcare and adult social care sectors it carried out. Rather than the 15,220 “inspections and reviews” it claimed to have undertaken in the year ending March 2011, it has now admitted to the DoH that the correct figure is 7,368.

“• There has been rising disquiet over the CQC’s “light touch” regulation. Until May 2011, when BBC’s Panorama exposed the scandal of abuse at Winterbourne View, a private hospital for people with learning disabilities, the CQC had launched just one investigation. By contrast, its predecessor, the Healthcare Commission, completed 16 investigations in five years. After the BBC’s story the regulator launched two investigations into NHS hospital trusts.”

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