Your medical records could be sold to the highest bidder. But not if we can stop it.

Starting this year, private companies will be able to buy information on us from the NHS’s new universal patient database -- including everything from mental health conditions, sexually transmitted infections and diseases like cancer -- all linked to your postcode, gender and ethnicity.

We’ve all been opted into the scheme by the government without our knowledge. And the clock is ticking -- the government has said they will upload our private data in a matter of just a few weeks. If we’re going to stop this, we have to act now.

Tell Jeremy Hunt and the NHS not to sell our private medical data.

It doesn’t really get more private than what you discuss with your doctor. They know the most personal things about us -- like whether we’ve ever been depressed, had an embarrassing infection or struggled with drug & alcohol problems. Now imagine, private companies trawling through your records looking for interesting information.

The government claims that individuals won’t be able to be identified. However, many experts have warned that under the current plans, we could easily be singled out through simple cross-referencing of other databases -- especially if you have a rare or unusual condition. The consequences for us as individuals could be huge.

We know that when we act together, we can bring about real change. When we fought to get High Street names like River Island and Edinburgh Woollen Mill to sign up to protect Bangladeshi factory workers, we won! Now we need to step up to defend something precious -- our right to privacy.

Tell Jeremy Hunt to stop the sale of our personal medical information to big corporations.

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More Information:

NHS patient data to be made available to drug and insurance firms, The Guardian, 19 January 2014. 

Price list for access to medical data, Health & Social Care Information Centre, January 2014 

Police will have 'backdoor' access to health records despite opt-out, says MP, The Guardian,

GPs revolt on patient records: Growing anger at NHS plan to harvest private data , Daily Mail, 5 February 2014