The Department of Health has faced a barrage
of criticism over its handling of the Connecting For Health
computer system, and patients have been refused a vital opt-out of
the system which ministers had promised.
The Commission's Framework 7 project, which
funds research in the European Union, contains an element called
the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), which
proposes a link up between the health information systems of
European countries.
"Interoperability and integration of data can
improve the care provided to patients, the reduction of medical
error, and the human and economic cost savings that can be
achieved," said a Commission document, Connected Health:
Quality and Safety for European Citizens, published last
autumn. "As a result of an aging population and the empowerment of
citizens, demands on health and social care are continuously
rising. The advantages obtained from eHealth include accessibility
and timely availability of medical data, improved workflow and
seamless disease management, new clinical applications."
Privacy advocates, though, fear that the
potential problems inherent in a UK-wide health information system
would only be compounded by a Europe-wide system. "If it comes to
the point that every one of the five million people working in
healthcare in Europe, plus the CIA and hackers, can access the
information, then I'll stop using the health service," Ross
Anderson, a security engineering professor at Cambridge university,
told the ZDNet.co.uk news service.
The NHS's proposed system has been beset by
cost over-runs and delays. Recently OUT-LAW revealed that the
Department of Health denied a large number of requests from
patients to opt out of the system. The British Medical Association
has threatened to ask GPs to boycott the system in protest.
The data likely to be shared in any
Europe-wide system is similar to that in the summary care record
which will be the first part of the NHS system to go live later
this year. Both systems will start out by making available
emergency care information and medical histories.
Opponents fear that putting that data in one
centralised database makes it vulnerable to hackers from outside
the system. Even if external security is protected, though, the
possibility that tens of thousands of health sector workers could
have access to medical records worries some.
European ministers discussed and approved an
information sharing system in 2005 at an eHealth conference in
Tromso in Norway. "In a Europe in which our citizens are
increasingly mobile – whether within the borders of their own
Member State or among different countries – we need to raise
awareness of the pressing need for a more integrated and
interoperable European health information space," said a joint
statement after that discussion. "The Ministers commit to taking up
this challenge in a staged and structured approach over the next
five-year period."
The system would be jointly funded by the
participating member states and by the European Commission. The
Commission is said to be on the verge of issuing an official call
for proposals on what kind of scheme it should operate.
