Roger calls for indefinite delay on plans to extract and sell NHS data

BIRMINGHAM MP ROGER GODSIFF CALLS FOR INDEFINITE DELAY ON NHS PLANS TO EXTRACT LARGE AMOUNTS OF CONFIDENTIAL PATIENT DATA.

Birmingham Hall Green MP Roger Godsiff has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for an indefinite delay on the introduction of plans known as care.data, which will extract and link large amounts of patient data.

Speaking from Westminster, Mr Godsiff said: "The NHS wants to extract this data to ‘improve the delivery of healthcare and to benefit researchers inside and outside the NHS' but I have grave reservations about the whole project.

“By rights this programme should have been up and running by now, but the Information Commissioner was so concerned about the project that the start date for the harvesting of patient data was delayed by a year to spring 2014, because of issues relating to the confidentiality of the extracted data, lack of public awareness and the extent of information sharing”. 

While welcoming the current public awareness campaign by NHS England, Mr Godsiff believes that these plans are flawed because the whole programme operates on the principle of 'presumed consent'. This means that unless individuals notify doctors that they want to 'opt out' out of the whole process, the NHS takes the default position that individuals have consented to their data being taken and used.

“I believe that the whole process begins to undermine fundamentally the long established principle of patient confidentiality, and is a recipe for confusion”, he said. “The NHS just seems to think patronisingly that all it needs to do is to throw in health-speak phrases such as ‘improve delivery’, ‘for the benefit of the service’ and ‘in the public interest’, and people will just roll over and allow their data to be taken because it’s for their own good!”

He continued: “I have absolutely no faith in assertions by Government that patient data will be coded in such a way as to guarantee anonymity, particularly as the NHS will reserve to itself the right in ‘the public interest and for the benefit of the health service’ to allow access to identifiable data. There is also the Government's record as a whole on data management or rather, chronic mismanagement and leakages. I believe that patients themselves, not NHS England, should determine when and where their own medical information is used and for what purposes”.

Mr Godsiff continued: "It has been one of the blackest years on record for the NHS. The current, deep-seated issues of health mismanagement, accompanied by chronic lack of oversight and corrosive levels of secrecy, have led directly to patient deaths, as the Mid-Staffs NHS Trust saga proved. I find it very difficult to understand why the Government should insist on introducing a measure such as this at a time when it already has its hands full dealing with current problems”.

He concluded: “I believe that the Government should first sort out the problems that face it immediately before even contemplating introducing a new system such as care.data.

“I'm sure that many commercial companies which want to bid for lucrative NHS contracts would relish the prospect of being able to access this kind of data in any form, anonymous or otherwise, in developing a bid for such work. However, at the moment it is just another worrying example of Government encroaching on confidential, personal data, seemingly oblivious to the consequences for individual citizens.”

You can read the Parliamentary Questions Roger asked the Government on care.data last week at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140115/text/140115w0002.htm#140115101001135

Roger asks DWP for answers on people affected by Coalition bedroom tax mess-up in Hall Green

Roger has tabled a Written Parliamentary Question to ask the Department for Work and Pensions how many people in his constituency have been affected by the latest bout of Coalition incompetence on benefits.

The Government’s failure to introduce full retrospective legislation when bringing in the bedroom tax left a legal loophole which makes a number of tenants exempt from this charge. Social housing tenants who have been living at the same address and claiming housing benefit continuously since 1 January 1996 were not legally obliged to pay the bedroom tax and should not have been charged.

It is estimated that between 4% and 15% of people forced to pay the bedroom tax were charged incorrectly, and will be able to claim reimbursement.  

After tabling the question to DWP, Roger commented: “This is extremely embarrassing for the Government. How can people trust them to run the country if they can’t even legislate correctly to introduce their own policies? Yet for once the effects of Coalition incompetence will be positive, with thousands of people being repaid their bedroom tax payments.”

“However, this is really just a stay of execution. While some people will receive refunds of their bedroom tax payments, a much larger number will not. Those who are exempt are not likely to remain so for long, as the Coalition will soon close the loophole.”

“This reimbursement will not compensate people for the stress and worry inflicted by this policy or return people to homes they were forced to leave. Nor will it prevent further suffering being inflicted on ill, disabled or low-paid people by a Government addicted to cutting their support.”

Councils will not necessarily notify social housing tenants that they may be liable for reimbursement. If you think you might qualify for this exemption and have wrongly been charged, you will need to contact your local housing benefit office to find out. A template letter is available online at 

http://speye.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/continuous-hb-since-before-1-jan-1996-are-you-exempt-from-the-bedroom-tax/

Roger Godsiff MP challenges DEFRA claim of intellectual property rights in dead badgers

Roger has written to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to challenge its claim that intellectual property regulations justify withholding the results of TB tests carried out on culled badgers from public scrutiny.

DEFRA refuses to carry out routine TB tests on shot badgers, making it more difficult to assess the “effectiveness” of the badger cull. However, while it refuses to respond to calls by MPs and taxpayers to institute routine testing, it will carry out tests at the request of landowners.

Roger tabled a Parliamentary Question to ask for the results of these tests, but was told by George Eustice MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Farming, Food and Marine Environment, that these results are being withheld under regulation 12(5)(c), which protects intellectual property.

Roger wrote to DEFRA to express his concern that this section of the intellectual property regulations, which are supposed to protect the creators of works of art, is being applied to dead badgers. He requested an internal review and a full explanation of the reasoning behind DEFRA’s decision that tests on culled badgers fall under IP protection.

Roger said: “I find it worrying that the results of an extremely unpopular policy, carried out at public expense but without any approval from the taxpayer, are being withheld from the public and from proper public scrutiny. It is a stretch of credibility that landowners can hold intellectual property rights in dead badgers, and I would like DEFRA to justify this decision.”

Roger demanded an explanation from DEFRA on a number of issues, including how the results of post-mortems carried out on animals at taxpayer expense fall under IP regulations. Roger also asked DEFRA to explain why it decided that the public interest in withholding the results outweighed the public interest in disclosure, and reminded Mr Eustice that the same regulations state that a public body will apply a presumption in favour of the disclosure of information.

END

You can read Roger’s question to DEFRA and the response here, and Roger’s letter to DEFRA here

Roger protests against human rights violations in Colombia

Roger was among a small group of MPs who voted against approving the draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Colombia and Peru Trade Agreement) Order 2013. Sixty-one MPs chose to vote against accepting this free-trade agreement with Colombia in protest against the country’s failure to honour its commitments on human rights.

Roger explained the reason for his “no” vote: “Once again, this Government have put economic interests above human rights. In just one year, 37 human rights activists were murdered in Colombia, sixteen of whom were murdered by Government forces during strike action. The free trade agreement sets out standards for human rights protection, but I am concerned that this is just empty rhetoric that will not be enforced. This House should not condone the murder of innocent people by their own Government.”

The trade agreement was passed by the House, but Roger and his colleagues who voted against it felt that it was important to make a stand against human rights abuses, wherever in the world they take place.

Roger condemns need for food banks in House of Commons debate

 Speaking in a debate on the rise of food banks in in the House of Commons, Roger  Godsiff MP condemned the economic inequality and Government indifference which have forced people to turn to “modern-day soup kitchens”.

In his speech, Roger talked about the experience of one his constituents who had to use a food bank in Sparkhill. She had a well-paid job, but after losing her job and suffering bereavements, she was forced to rely on benefits. She got into debt with her utility bills, and had to spend most of her JSA on paying the ever-rapacious energy and water companies, leaving her with just £5 per fortnight to live on.

Happily, this constituent has now found a job and is feeling hopeful about the future, but Roger emphasised that no-one in the world’s seventh largest economy should be forced to rely on food banks to survive. The state has a duty to provide a safety net for its citizens, and should not abandon them to the instabilities of unregulated markets.

Roger concluded his speech: “The Government ought to be ashamed of presiding over a situation in which people must go through what that young lady, who is not feckless or a shirker, has had to experience. At the end of the day, lives will be scarred by the humiliation of forcing people into food banks—not just the lives of those individuals, but the lives of their children, too. Whatever the Government say, their MPs should be ashamed of that.”

You can read Roger’s full speech here

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131218/debtext/131218-0004.htm

Roger Godsiff MP calls for renewed efforts to fight TB after new figures reveal Birmingham Hall Green as an “at risk” area

New figures showing that the rate of tuberculosis (TB) in Birmingham Hall Green is five the national average have been described as “deeply concerning” by local MP Roger Godsiff.

Although often considered to have been eliminated, TB remains the world’s second deadliest infectious disease, killing 1.3 million people in 2012. The disease doesn’t only affect the developing world: the UK has the highest rates of TB in Western Europe.

The national average for the UK is 13.9 cases per 100,000 of the population. The rate in Birmingham Hall Green is 72.4 per 100,000.

Roger stated that the figures are of particular concern given that a small, but growing, proportion of cases are drug-resistant. Cases of drug-resistant TB can take two years to treat, requiring patients to take an average of 14,000 pills and costing local health services tens of thousands of pounds.

Roger wants to ensure that people are aware of the risk of TB and of some of the symptoms, which can include: a persistent cough, night sweats, a high temperature and a lack of appetite or weight loss.

“Most people in the UK think that TB is a disease of the past, but the number of cases of the disease in the UK has doubled in the last decade”, Roger said. “It’s important that people are aware of the threat posed by the disease, and that they make sure they go to a doctor if they experience symptoms.”

Public Health England is currently developing a national strategy to fight TB, but it is also important to reach out to the most vulnerable parts of the community and make sure that everyone understands the importance of diagnosing and treating the disease as early as possible.

The Birmingham health authority has a rate of 37.6 TB cases per 100,000. In comparison London’s average is 42, Public Health England’s definition of a high risk area stands at 40, and the UK average is 13.9 cases per 100,000.