ARTICLE 2 : Researchers are not a threat to NHS patient privacy ARTICLE 2
This article can be used to support Lesson 1: English ARTICLE
Researchers are not a threat to NHS patient privacy Giving professional medical researchers better access to patient records could help develop more effective treatments, says Simon Wessely As a medical researcher frequently involved in running studies to improve health I was disappointed to find your main article suggested the privacy of NHS patients would be undermined by a plan to let researchers have access to their medical files. The reader could easily walk away thinking the medical research community is attempting to bypass medical confidentiality, avoid consent, and recruit people as "guinea pigs" for God knows what. That is not true. First the proposal does not in any way move away from informed consent as the basis for medical research - all that researchers are asking for is the ability to contact people so they can themselves make a choice as to whether or not they want to take part in research. If they don't - fine. We know from the disease charities for example that many people are keen to participate in decent research, but never get asked. Researchers also want to make sure the information goes to the right people, and hence do not needlessly bother people who don't have the health problem in question. Second, those who would be allowed to check records to determine whether someone might be eligible to participate in research would be people like me - doctors and researchers who will have the same duty of confidentiality and the same draconian punishment if we transgress. Third, people should not assume it is only your friendly family doctor who looks in the notes to see if you might be interested in taking part in research. He/she would never rarely have the time, which is part of the problem. It is the practice nurse, or practice receptionist, or whoever, and they may not always have the same standards of confidentiality and/or sanctions as doctors do. Furthermore they are more likely to actually know the patient personally, something many patients are rightly concerned about.
People need to be crystal clear: what is on offer is just that, an offer, accompanied by a full, proper, explanation of what is involved; giving people the chance to take part in a serious, monitored, previously ethically approved study. A chance not just to help themselves, but everyone else with the same condition. Overall, the NHS belongs to us all, and all of us depend on medical research to improve treatments, outcomes, and the health of the public. What is wrong with suggesting patients are entitled to get offers to take part in worthwhile activities such as ethically approved medical research rather than endlessly receiving junk mail about credit cards that they don't need and don't want? • Professor Simon Wessely is head of the department of psychological medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2008/nov/17/nhs-health