25.02.14
Lack of ‘scrutiny’ allowed patient data to be sold to insurers
The Health and Social Care Information Centre has rebuked its predecessor organisation for selling patient data to the insurance industry.
A spokeswoman for HSCIC said: “The HSCIC believes greater scrutiny should have been applied by our predecessor body prior to an instance where data was shared with an actuarial society.
“We would like to restate that full postcodes and dates of birth were not supplied as part of this data and that it was not used to analyse individual insurance premiums, but to analyse general variances in critical illness.”
The Telegraph reported yesterday that the NHS Information Centre sold hospital episode data covering 47m patients across 13 years, to the Staple Inn Actuarial Society, to help insurers calculate and refine their premiums.
The Department of Health said: “The rules changed last year so this would no longer be allowed. Information like this can only be accessed now if there is a clear benefit to improving health or health systems.”
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