The following seems topical to a recent question (presumably this will
also show up in Hansard somewhere, although I can't find it right now):
http://www.bjhc.co.uk/news/1/2004/n41013.htm
NHS number to be protected by law
The Government has told Parliament that it intends to make the NHS
number a 'general identifier' as defined by the Data Protection Act
1998. Once the relevant regulations are enacted, any organisation using
the NHS number for an unauthorised purpose would be processing it
unlawfully.
A spokesperson for the DoH told bjhc&im: "Proposals for draft
regulations have been put forward by the Health Records and Data
Protection Review group" and these recommendations are "currently being
considered to ensure that policy is developed in line with the Children
Bill". The databases associated with the Children Bill are to carry the
NHS number in each record, and this unique identifier will, therefore,
be accessible and used by a wide range of public authorities.
The DoH legislative proposals to protect the use of the NHS number
differ completely from the approach adopted for other Government-issued
identification numbers. At the same time as the DoH promised wider
protection for the NHS number, the Government confirmed that the
national-insurance and the pupil-identification numbers would not be
specified as general identifiers under the Data Protection Act
--
Roland Perry
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