NHS data breach affects 150,000 patients in England

            <img class="js-image-replace" alt="Medical form" src="http://www.mangobaaz.ml/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/nhs-data-breach-affects-150000-patients-in-england.jpg" width="976" height="549"/><br/>Image copyright
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                Until recently, GPs had to record whether patients wanted to prevent use of their health information for research and planning
            
        </figcaption></figure><p class="story-body__introduction">The NHS is blaming a coding error for 150,000 patients in England being involved in a data breach.</p><p>Those affected had requested that their confidential health information only be used to help provide them with care.</p><p>But it appears that there was a problem with the software used by GPs to record objections to the same data being used for research and auditing purposes.</p><p>As a result, the SystmOne application involved never passed on the request to NHS England's IT provider.</p><p>The software's developer TPP has said it "apologises unreservedly" for the fault.</p><p>NHS Digital has said it will write to all the patients involved as well as their GPs.</p><p>"There is not, and has never been, any risk to patient care as a result of this error," said <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-07-02/HCWS813/" class="story-body__link-external">junior health minister Jackie Doyle-Price in a statement to Parliament</a>.</p><figure class="media-landscape has-caption full-width">
            
            
            
            
            
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             TPP
            
        
        
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                The SystmOne application is designed to share patient data across the NHS's various services
            
        </figcaption></figure><p>She added <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out-programme" class="story-body__link-external">that the recent introduction of the national data opt-out programme</a> - a new service that allows individuals to restrict use of their health data without having to involve their GP - would prevent such a failure occurring again.</p><p>The Information Commissioner's Office has been notified.</p><p>"We are aware of an incident involving NHS Digital and are making inquiries," an ICO spokeswoman told the BBC.</p>
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