I was particularly interested in finding out who is responsible for providing the information in the first place, who checks that it is correct, & who is responsible for keeping the whole thing accurate & up to date. Are parents obliged to register the child? What, if anything, is the responsibility of the school or GP if a child leaves? Is there a link with birth registers?
And what about emigration?
There used to be a responsibility on patients, (which may still exist for all I know, I just no longer have a current NHS card to tell me so) to inform your doctor if you expected to be out of the country for 3 months or more. Those were the days when a GP was paid a fixed amount for each patient registered, & he would not be paid for the period you were away
Not surprisingly, many people did not think to do this, even if they were emigrating permanently. The NHSCR still picked up details of a surprising number of emigrating families however – from milkmen
Doorstep delivery was still the norm in those days; milkmen collected the vouchers which paid for a pint of milk a day for each pre-school child who had been weaned off powdered milk
Come close – let me whisper: the Government was pushing full fat milk on children
Rosemary Hignett would not approve
But the milkmen often passed on the intelligence as to why vouchers were no longer required
*****
I wrote the above on the same day, but before I had read, The Times report that work on the database had been halted because of security flaws
Most alarming, to me, of these flaws is that the ‘shielding’ of the records of vulnerable children disappears every time that the database is updated automatically from central government databases such as the one for child benefit. This can mean, for example, that original birth details of adopted children can be exposed
Automatic correction of one database by another, which is under completely separate administrative control, is the sort of thing which ought to ring alarm bells & set the red lights flashing for anyone who has the slightest experience of such systems. It is just asking for trouble, except, perhaps, when introduced slowly & carefully to allow all concerned to appreciate the kind of problem which may arise - not all of which can be foreseen, & especially not in such a sensitive area
Take the example that was reported just a day or so later, of the letter sent to the parents of a girl who had died, telling them they must improve her school attendance. Of course the record cannot be completely wiped in such circumstances – that would just lead to another set of hurtful happenings such as They just wiped out her name, it was as if she had never been – but the software was not designed to cope. As the school said, ‘We should have checked every single letter before it was sent’, but that of course would put a dent in the kind of efficiency savings such systems are supposed to deliver
My final worry about the database is: What happens when the child reaches 18?
Here is a record containing sensitive information, some of which the ‘child’ may wish to dispute, & almost certainly has the right to demand should not be accessible to anyone else, ever, without their express consent. The State cannot, I hope, claim any over-riding right to it
Most alarming, to me, of these flaws is that the ‘shielding’ of the records of vulnerable children disappears every time that the database is updated automatically from central government databases such as the one for child benefit. This can mean, for example, that original birth details of adopted children can be exposed
Automatic correction of one database by another, which is under completely separate administrative control, is the sort of thing which ought to ring alarm bells & set the red lights flashing for anyone who has the slightest experience of such systems. It is just asking for trouble, except, perhaps, when introduced slowly & carefully to allow all concerned to appreciate the kind of problem which may arise - not all of which can be foreseen, & especially not in such a sensitive area
Take the example that was reported just a day or so later, of the letter sent to the parents of a girl who had died, telling them they must improve her school attendance. Of course the record cannot be completely wiped in such circumstances – that would just lead to another set of hurtful happenings such as They just wiped out her name, it was as if she had never been – but the software was not designed to cope. As the school said, ‘We should have checked every single letter before it was sent’, but that of course would put a dent in the kind of efficiency savings such systems are supposed to deliver
My final worry about the database is: What happens when the child reaches 18?
Here is a record containing sensitive information, some of which the ‘child’ may wish to dispute, & almost certainly has the right to demand should not be accessible to anyone else, ever, without their express consent. The State cannot, I hope, claim any over-riding right to it
Link
