Patients only have until the end of February to opt out from having their personal confidential medical data extracted from GPs’ computers on a monthly basis, without their consent, and sent to a new national database called care.data.

Starting from March 2014, the Health & Social Care Act 2012 requires GPs to send each patient’s Personal Confidential Data (PCD) data to the care.data system without any prior consent – unless patients specifically opt out. It’s simple to opt out, as outlined below.

The care.data system is run by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), using software and services procured from ATOS, a private company.
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