ewx | NHS Summary Care Records opt-out

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So to get started all you have to do is correctly enter a NINETY-FIVE CHARACTER URL…

(That's http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/scr/staff/aboutscr/comms/pip/noscr.pdf for anyone who’d like to save themselves the trouble. Obviously you should check I’m giving you the right URL though.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

twigletzone.livejournal.com

Yeah, I noticed that... I found the form and handed it in for Reasons of Personal Privacy but even I got the URL wrong twice...

From:

dave holland (from livejournal.com)

Crap, isn't it.

On the other hand, that form is the top hit if you Google "scr optout form".

From:

baljemmett.livejournal.com

Hopefully they won't simply resort to printing "search online for 'scr optout form'", though, despite an apparently trend towards this in advertising and even the BBC's attempts to direct people to a website.

Perhaps direct.gov should offer a mnemonic URL-shortening service!

From:

dave holland (from livejournal.com)

I suspect that if someone has enough brain to know they want to opt out they'll either (a) search for the form rather than try to type the URL, or (b) write a letter to the GP, which carries the same weight as the form.

I can't help thinking that domain names/URLs are a tiny bit of an irrelevance when you're trying to find information; but they do carry some sense of value/correctness/importance when trying to evaluate the information that a search turns up.

From:

baljemmett.livejournal.com

Yes, they should ideally be a last-resort way of finding information; however, they have the major advantage that they are (nominally, at least) under the control of the information provider, as opposed to search results which can be manipulated by external parties for hilarious and/or nefarious ends.

From:

ewx.livejournal.com

Apparently a colleague was asked to find the form by a neighbour who wasn’t very computer literate, with copy-typing the URL being the main problem. Obviously I don’t know if they’d have given up or gone with a letter, and I don’t know how widely their experience will be repeated, but I do think there’s a genuine usability problem here and it ought to have been sorted in advance.

Moreover given the amount of bumf you get with the letter, a single extra page for the form would not have been a big deal. So I’m disposed to see the poor usability as basically deliberate.

From:

grendelyn.livejournal.com

I wasted a year of my life on that project, and I will be opting out.

Take that as you will.

From:

ewx.livejournal.com

I'm pretty much taking it as read that anyone with the slightest interest in privacy will be opting out.

From:

lnr

I'm interested in privacy, but in my case having doctors able to access my medical records more easily in order to treat me outweighs any issues of administrators being able to look at them without just cause. Obviously this would be different if there were anything about my health that I thought needed hiding more, and I understand it's a decision people should make for themselves on a personal basis.

Much as I think the system they've come up with is broken in many ways I'm not going to opt out just as a protest.

From:

lnr

On which note I'm off to the hospital again :)

From:

baljemmett.livejournal.com

I'd have to agree with that; my last checkup was with a doctor who wasn't attached to my consultant's team, who wasn't at all impressed that the notes he had been given bore little resemblance to the eye he was looking at. When I pointed out that there were at this point at least three sets of 'my notes' circulating due to mysterious disappearances and reappearances, etc., he turned and dictated a stern letter to central records telling them to Sort It Out.

It remains to be seen whether this has worked, of course -- I'll find out in a month or so -- but the value of having records available reliably despite the system being a complete and utter shambles in general is going to have to be something I consider when my GP writes about the SCR. Unfortunately.