Trust has to be earned

I got a letter today from Medway NHS about the Summary Care Record which is a secure electronic summary of crucial health information which could make a major difference to my care if I'm unable to tell NHS staff the details myself.

I suspect they will fool a lot of people into opting into it by default, as opting out requires downloading a form and taking it along to your local GP (by June 10th 2010)  telling them not to bother putting you on it.

Personally I'll be opting out for the simple reason I don't trust the government and by proxy the NHS with my personal data either from abuse or simply just leaving it for anyone to find on a bus, train, taxi or landfill site.

Telegraph. 2007 figures

A record 37 million items of personal data went missing last year, new research reveals.
Most of the data was lost by government officials but councils, NHS trusts, banks, insurance companies and chain stores also mislaid or published personal information about staff or members of the public.
Many losses were caused through CDs going missing in the post, laptop thefts, and inadequate security systems that failed to stop hackers reading information stored on computers.
The details lost included those of names, addresses, passports, bank and mortgage accounts, credit cards, hospital records, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, driving licences and telephone numbers.

Data Loss Examples in 2008:

NHS: The NHS lost a lot of data in 2008, with a selection of examples below:

• 9 NHS trust admit losing millions of records.
• 4 out of 5 NHS trusts lose medical records
• List of NHS losses produced by the Freedom of Information Act (its a long article!)
• 45,000 medical records lost
• 21,000 medical records lost
• The NHS also moved a lot of records out to other company  with 300 million medical records moved out of the NHS and the patients data being shared with council 

Sooner or later you'll all get a letter like this, it's up to you as to whether or not you trust them, personally I don't and I'd reccomend you don't give them the data either.

And what's with the having to download the opt out form? Some people don't have internet access still. Sounds like a con to make sure we all sign up regardless.

Trust has to be earned, quite frankly they can't be trusted if past efforts are anything to go on.