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NHS call centre tells patient: 'You cannot see the doctor, you’re dead'

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Dissent

One of the trumpeted benefits of electronic medical records is how they will speed up and improve healthcare. Of course, errors can happen even in non-electronic systems, but consider this story out of the UK, reported by Fred Attewill of Metro:

Alan Campbell argued that he was very much alive but he was told to go back to his GP and ‘sort it out’ as the records held by the NHS Choose and Book system showed he was deceased.

‘I couldn’t believe it. I was flabbergasted,’ said the 63-year-old who contracted skin cancer six years ago. ‘I said, ‘‘You’re joking, I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’’ I’m not one for complaining but when somebody says you’re dead it’s not on.’

The former lorry driver, from Little Harwood near Blackburn, was told the problem had been resolved when he contacted his GP at the Bangor Street Health and Resource Centre on Monday.

But when he rang the call centre he was once again told he was ‘deceased’. Mr Campbell said he was told to take the matter up with his GP. ‘I said I’ve been there already. But he said it about four or five times. It’s only three-and-a-half years since I lost my wife Christine and it brought things back. It was very painful.’

His partner Barbara Sanderson, 60, said: ‘It was very upsetting. You don’t expect to hear that.’ NHS Blackburn With Darwen Teaching Care Trust Plus has apologised for the error and launched an inquiry.

The NHS has been beset with problems and breaches. Really, how does the government there expect patients to trust the system when they have avoidable privacy or security breaches, fail to adequate secure their system so that only those who are involved in the patient’s care can access a patient’s records (instead of a cast of thousands having access), and when the records contain pesky errors that a patient is dead when they are alive and just in need of care.

Update: Ah, here we go: NHS electronic care records of almost no benefit to patients, says official report

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