In message <[log in to unmask]> "Stuart Skeates" writes:
>Maybe this is not news to you but today my neighbouring practice received
>two newborn registration documents with the same number. I then heard that
>this is not an isolated problem and we should not rely on this number as a
>unique patient identifier. How can so much time and money have been spent
>without devising a proper method for issuing numbers to the newborn. We
>might as well have stayed with the old numbers. Perhaps the lottery machine
>could be kept busy all week issuing the new numbers.
>
The NHS just issued a report about this. About 2% of newborns are
being issued with dupe numbers, mostly caused when registrars use a
different PC without transferring their lists of numbers from one to
another, or when a deputy registrar covers for absence, as near as I
can tell.
The interesting thing is, the problems are compounded by the current
preoccupation with confidentiality. The Data Protection office
advised that the format of the new number has to be completely
unrelated to its owner's name, DOB etc. So it is essentially random
rather than generated out of the details on the register as it used
to be; and registrars aren't allowed to write it in the register so
they can't make a visual check for duplication.
I don't know why they didn't just produce 50 million sequentially
numbered sticky labels and mail them out.
--
Pete Mitchell, Editor, e-Med News - an international
newsletter on electronic data in medical applications
headline news: http://www.pjbpubs.co.uk/a/emedhome.html
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