Anger as GPs hand our private medical records to insurers
GPs are routinely handing out patients’ medical records to insurance firms, the information watchdog has warned.
They are increasingly giving insurers the entire confidential files on request, prompting fears that the details are being used to increase premiums.
The Information Commissioner last night launched a crackdown on the practice, warning that it was against the law and potentially breached patients’ privacy.
It said that insurers have been increasingly exploiting a loophole to obtain patients’ entire medical files from GPs, including any past conditions and their family history.
By law, insurance firms can make special requests to family doctors for them to write a bespoke report about a patient which focuses on a particular condition. This is so companies can check that information provided by a patient taking out life insurance is correct, and has not been played down to avoid a hefty premium.
Insurers must get patients’ consent beforehand and GPs can divulge only information which they think is relevant.
But according to the watchdog, insurers are increasingly getting hold of patients’ complete medical files by exploiting a tactic called a ‘subject access right’.
This right enables patients to get their own medical file from a surgery, usually for a small fee. However the Information Commissioner says insurers are increasingly writing to GPs ‘ on a patient’s behalf ’ and obtaining the information themselves.
Doctors are handing over the details because they assume patients have given their consent, even if they haven’t.
The watchdog is now holding talks with the doctors’ professional body, the British Medical Association, urging them to make clear that patients’ medical files must not be handed out.
It has also recently written to the insurance industry warn- ing that demanding to see medical files breaks the Data Protection Act.
In a strongly-worded statement last night, the watchdog said it was ‘considering the emerging practice of insurance companies obtaining medical records by using patients’ subject access rights’. It went on to say that this right was meant to benefit patients, and not to ‘underpin the commercial processes of insurers’.
The revelations will add to concerns that patients’ sensitive information is increasingly being passed around the NHS and private firms.
Campaigner Roger Goss, codirector of Patient Concern, said: ‘Why on Earth are GPs willingly handing out this information? I am appalled.
‘The only reason firms want this data is in order to identify further risks that patients have which would make their premiums even higher.’
The NHS has recently been criticised over plans to extract patients’ medical details from surgeries and store them on a giant computer database, to be used for research.
And last month a leaked letter revealed how a senior health official had demanded to see details of thousands of patients’ GP appointments.
‘I am appalled’