Dr. Julie McMillen
GP with Bradshaw Brow Practice, Bolton
Transcript
The first thing we knew about it was that Bolton was going to be the first one in the country to start getting involved. They then ran some engagement events for us to go to, and I went along in the attitude of great concern because all I’d read was in the medical press, which was all quite negative.
"These that have been put in the computer, they can be put on file now, thank you".
I've had a lot of worries about patients’ records going anywhere outside of our GPs practices really because I know how important confidentiality is to patients.
I came round to the opinion that, in fact, it’s not our information that we hold on patients' records; it's the patients' information. So I began to feel if that's what patients wanted, to share their information, then that was their decision. And that I felt that the opportunity that was going to be given to them to make that decision was being well done.
They were all going to be sent an addressed envelope with their name on it explaining it to them. There was lots of opportunity for people who didn't speak English to find out further information. There were lots of things in place for people who weren't likely to understand the information, so I was quite happy that people were going to be given the information they needed to a make a choice.
I think there has to be a note of caution in, you know, some patients might see things that worry them because they might not understand the jargon that’s used. But the way we're going to roll out the programme here I think covers that.
Patients are going to be given a lot of information before their medical conditions are uploaded, but also I think once their diseases start to be uploaded, if they want that, we're going to give them that information before it's uploaded to check it for accuracy.
