Information Plans For Doctors Are Fundamentally Flawed

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 30 Mar 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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Proposals outlined by the Department of Health to hold sensitive information about doctors on a national database may undermine confidence in the medical profession, a leading doctors' body warned today.

In Tackling Concerns Locally, Report of the Information Management subgroup, the Department of Health proposes a fundamental shake-up in the nature of information to be collected and stored on a central database about individual doctors. Included in the proposals are plans to collect and share "soft" information and details of clinical negligence claims against health professionals which the Medical Protection Society (MPS) said were deeply concerning.

The proposals, published last Friday, include plans to collect, store and share a range of potentially sensitive data including the following categories of information:

- Informal concerns raised by patients or colleagues
- Formal complaints and concerns from patients, carers and colleagues
- Clinical negligence claims
- Health issues which may affect performance
- Adverse events
- Investigations
- Informal warnings

Among these proposals is the highly contentious plan to hold "soft" information about health professionals. "Soft" information is defined in the Report as an informal expression of concern (oral or written) about a healthcare professional. Serious questions have been raised about whether these concerns can be objectively and fairly investigated and tested.

The information would be shared with other relevant healthcare organisations or regulators, with some categories of information, including clinical negligence claims, made available to individual patients and potentially members of the public.

Commenting on the proposals, Dr Stephanie Bown, director of communications and policy at MPS, said: "We are deeply concerned about the plans to hold and share "soft" information and details of clinical negligence claims against individual healthcare professionals. Sharing and collating relevant information is crucial to protect patients, but it is important to distinguish between information that legitimately flags up potential threats to patient safety and information gathered from unsubstantiated sources, gossip and personal opinion. It takes many years to build a reputation, and only days to destroy it".

Dr Bown continued: "We also call into question the value of holding details about clinical negligence claims against healthcare professionals. MPS has dealt with thousands of clinical negligence claims against doctors and dentists and we believe that they are not a good indicator of poor clinical practice. Many claims can be unfounded or vexatious - a look at our clinical negligence cases in 2008 shows that more than half of claims brought formally against doctors were dropped or were not successful. Some specialities such as cosmetic surgeons and obstetricians are generally subject to a higher number of claims and this data, if not interpreted correctly, could be seriously misleading."

Dr Bown warned that: "the prospect of having clinical negligence claims recorded raises the stakes for healthcare professionals and will make the legal process more adversarial as there may be an understandable reluctance to agree to early settlement of the claim."

"As these plans are taken forward, we will continue to strongly oppose any plans to hold details about clinical negligence claims against health professionals. We also urge the Department of Health to include stringent safeguards to protect innocent healthcare professionals from being unfairly labelled as potential risks to patients. The profession needs assurances that subjective rumour and gossip will have no place on a doctor's record."

"Members of the healthcare profession are entitled to privacy just like any other workforce. Given recent high profile breaches of the security of national databases it is understandable that these proposals will cause healthcare professionals great anxiety."

Notes

1. Tackling Concerns Locally, Report of the Information Management subgroup was published by the Department of Health on 23 March 2009 and can be accessed on the Department of Health website.

2. The proposals will be subject to consultation and parliamentary approval later this year and implementation is likely to be in 2010.

Source
Department of health, Uk