Cambridge University Computer Laboratory
Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG
ross.anderson@cl.cam.ac.uk
Ross Anderson
Also available in pdf.
The policy has clarified things significantly, and we now see that the remaining `hard' problems are unavoidably political. They pit long established patient rights and professional privileges against the NHS's Information Management and Technology Strategy, which directs healthcare computing investment away from clinical systems to build a series of databases that will make personal health information available centrally to administrators. Our investigation of this has been slowed (though not thwarted) by systematic official obstruction, which suggests that administrators are uncomfortably aware of the ethical problems.