NHS Appraisal. No Maximum Security

DOH - No guarantee of Maximum Security

Of late, I have been discussing the various databases that have been created by the National Health Service for appraisals and revalidation. The main discussion has been about the collection of data. Centralized data collection always has serious problems. The Register today reports the predictable problems that are due to be seen in all other medical databases.

"The UK's Department of Health has taken the highly unusual step of suddenly taking a doctors' appraisal website offline for three weeks over concerns it was vulnerable to hacking attacks.

The NHS Appraisal Toolkit was taken down on Tuesday (9 February) and is not expected to return until 3 March.

The site provides an online database that allowed NHS doctors to prepare for their annual appraisals. The database therefore contains confidential information about all GPs' performance, along with a large amount of named patient data including near diagnosis misses, critical incidents and the like.

www.appraisals.nhs.uk was pulled offline without warning to the 27,000 doctors who use it after a security audit sparked fears that the site was insecure, an NHS statement explains. It stresses that the site takedown is a precautionary move and that no attack has actually taken place"

A Reg reader and doctor who first told us of the site downtime explained that the site was used by almost all GPs and many hospital doctors, adding that the takedown could hardly have happened at a worse time. "This at a a time when a huge chunk of GPs in particular are due their annual appraisals," he said.

And that is of course the stupidity of doctors in the United Kingdom. Instead of asking the question " What data is the Department of Health collecting and what will it be used for", they quietly just insert said data and progress forward until disaster strikes".

Many will recall that this was the problem with the MMC/MTAS issue. There was a security breach. Robert Goss tells us about the flaws of the system here.

On the flip side of the coin, it is interesting that the GMC reports a hike in complaints against General Practitioners. Those who know the GMC's database well will know all about Siebel and how even the most vexatious complaints are recorded on their databases to create a " fitness to practise history" of the doctor.

A GMC trial of revalidation has has found clear concerns with the system

"A GMC trial of revalidation has identified ‘clear concerns’ with the system, which doctors are believed to have found excessively bureaucratic and time-consuming, Pulse can reveal"

We should all remind ourselves that appraisal and revalidation were only created because the General Medical Council was incapable of stopping Shipman. No one thought about actually appraising or revalidating the General Medical Council itself. I suppose that would be such a simple solution. Too simple and cost effective for the establishment's liking I suspect. It will be fun to watch the revalidation meltdown while the doctors caught in the middle will run around like headless chickens. That is exactly what happens when the vast majority follow like large sheep in a field. This is called a complete lack of independent thought and misguided faith in a failing system.