Medical madness

In reply to David Frost’s article, “Medical Madness”, in July’s issue I wanted to highlight a worrying situation. My son, who has slight disabilities, renewed his bus pass recently and had to get information from his GP to support his claim. The GP sent the information back to us and on the letter it states he has a “shotgun/firearm certificate”. Surely this information should not be handed out to everyone? It isn’t just on the NHS records, but is now on the transport council’s database for all to see. Whatever happened to private and confidential?

It raises questions about security.

The more people who know we have guns, the more likely someone is to try to break in and steal them.

After going to see the GP about this, the receptionist did take the information about the certificate off the letter but it is still on his NHS notes. My wife and I also have a shotgun certificate on our medical records too. This is very worrying.

Name supplied, via email

David Frost says: These are shocking stories. We give permission for the GP to provide the police with medical information. Nowhere do we give anybody permission to publish more widely the fact we are certificate holders or the whereabouts of our guns. This appears to be a flagrant breach of the data protection legislation and it runs the risk of criminals knowing where to lay their hands on privately owned guns. If other readers have similar experiences please let us know so that we can pursue the matter.