Probe into claims that insurers given access to full medical records

　

An investigation is to be launched into claims that leading life insurers are being routinely handed access to full sets of patients' GP records

By Laura Donnelly


Data watchdogs are to investigate claims that Britain’s leading life insurers are being given full access to GP records containing information such as patients' mental health and relationship histories.

The Information Commissioner is to examine concerns that insurers are breaching data protection rules by routinely accessing medical records, including details about contraception, mental health and relationships.

Insurers are supposed to seek consent from customers before requesting relevant health information from their doctors.

Traditionally, this has meant that GPs provide a report outlining any health details which they believe are relevant to life cover.

But doctors’ groups believe that companies are breaching data protection rules, by increasingly using such consent to seek full disclosure of records, including detailed personal information.

Insurers Aviva and Legal & General said that for the past 12 months, they have been seeking full medical records for their clients, while insisting they disregarded any details which were not directly relevant to their assessments.

The firms said that although they made blanket requests, GPs were instructed to withhold some types of information – such as if patients had undergone tests for diseases such as HIV, which had proved negative. If details were passed over regardless, they would be ignored, the firms said.

Yesterday the Information Commissioner said it intends to investigate the matter, to determine whether companies are working within current legal safeguards.

The Medical Protection Society, which represents 290,000 medical professionals, said it had found been a steep rise in concerns about data requests by insurers, with about 2,300 calls from medics over the past year on the subject.

John Canning, of the British Medical Association, expressed "grave concern" and said he believed many customers were providing consent without realising how much information might be released.

He said: "A GP will hold all your medical history, containing details such as contraception use, termination of pregnancies and relationship issues that would have no bearing on an insurance policy. Our concern is that the consent obtained by insurers isn’t always understood by the person applying for a policy."

The investigation by the Information Commissioner comes amid increasing concerns about the rules governing medical data.

In February an investigation by The Daily Telegraph found that the NHS hospital medical records of 47 million patients had been sold for insurance purposes.

Following the disclosures, health officials said the sale should not have been allowed, and would now be barred following a tightening up of the rules.

Plans for a national database of GP records have been delayed, following a backlash from doctors leaders’ and patients groups, who raised concerns that the scheme had been poorly communicated, and that there were insufficient safeguards in place about the way the data will be used.

The initiative had been due to start extracting data in March, but has now been delayed until next year, and will first be piloted at a number of GP practices.

On Friday a national conference of doctors said the scheme should be drastically changed, so that patients’ data could only be used if individuals had "opted-in" to the scheme.

Under the current national plan for GP records, information from records will be taken unless patients specifically opt out from it.

Aviva and Legal & General said they had begun using "subject access requests" to obtain full histories from doctors for their customers because it was much quicker than getting a tailored medical report.

The Association of British Insurers said only relevant information should be provided by a GP. A spokesman said insurers would ignore all information which they judged "to be not relevant to its ability accurately to underwrite the customer".

Source The Telegraph