Concerns about privacy and the security of government data handling have prompted West Worcestershire Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Harriett Baldwin to ask her local GP surgery in Great Witley not to transfer her medical records to a central NHS computer database accessible to health service workers around the country.

Harriett Baldwin said,

"The government has already lost all my personal information, as well as that of my 12 year old son, when they lost the Child Benefit database. I am happy to say I enjoy very good health and my family's medical records are brief and boring, but I still don't want them entered on a vast central NHS database that can be accessed by staff all over the country. I trust my local GP in Great Witley to keep a record for staff at the surgery to access and that's it."

The national database, nicknamed the "Spine", is currently being trialed, with a view to making it mandatory throughout England. Unless individuals specifically opt-out of the scheme, the Government will assume consent has been given.

In the letter to the surgery in Great Witley, Harriett Baldwin wrote:

"I believe that spending £12 billion building the biggest civilian computer project in the world is a waste of precious NHS resources that would be much better spent in other areas of the NHS.

Secondly, after my experience with the Child Benefit database where not only my information but that of my 12 year old son was lost by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, I do not trust the NHS to keep my personal medical records confidential if they are held with 50 million other people on a larger national database."

Details of how to opt out of the NHS Summary Care Record can be found by visiting www.thebigoptout.org