Google handed NHS patient data

A controversial scheme to give Google access to NHS medical data has sparked privacy concerns.

For the next five years the company’s Deepmind artificial intelligence business will be able to analyse the records of up to 1.6m patients who have been treated at three hospitals in London’s Royal Free Hospital Trust – Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital and Royal Free in Hampstead.

Google will use the data in an app called Streams, which will send alerts to doctors about patients showing early signs of kidney disease. It claims that the app could save 10,000 lives a year, and that all the data is encrypted.

The Royal Free Trust’s chief executive David Sloman said the app would “substantially reduce” the amount of paperwork that doctors and nurses have to do, letting them spend more time treating patients.

But privacy campaigners questioned why Google needs to access data from so many patients, including those with healthy kidneys. Phil Booth of medconfidential ( https:// medconfidential.org) said: “It’s not about the one in six who will be helped by the app but the five in six who don’t have this condition but whose data gets copied anyway”.

He also criticised the scheme for giving Google a monthly report of patient data, which he claimed would be too old to provide valuable information, making “the entire process unreliable”.

Dr Julia Powles from Cambridge University, who has scrutinised the legal details of the deal, told the Financial Times that Google now has “a free pass for swift and broad access into the NHS, on the back of persuasive but unproven promises of efficiency and innovation”.

She’s concerned that the public has no power to find out “what Google and Deepmind are really doing with NHS patient data”.

The UK’S information commissioner is investigating the agreement to ensure it’s legitimate and is being used for the benefit of citizens.