{"id":15013,"date":"2018-04-18T15:40:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T14:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=15013"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:48","slug":"immigration-team-ask-gp-patient-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=15013","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Duty of care is to patients\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Home Office immigration officers have asked an East London GP surgery to reveal a patient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address in what Unite has described as an \u00e2\u20ac\u015bappalling\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 attempt to co-opt health workers into monitoring migrants.<\/p>\n

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The request comes on the heels of NHS Digital, which manages health service databases, controversially agreeing to share patient information to help the government find immigration offenders \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a move the health select committee this week said was \u00e2\u20ac\u015bentirely inappropriate<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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Now it has been revealed that the Home Office has gone one step further by writing to a GP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s surgery in Tower Hamlets to request a patient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address without giving a reason. The surgery, which has not been identified, raised the alarm about the request with its local medical committee.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doctors in Unite<\/a> deputy chair, Dr Jackie Applebee, sits on the surgery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s committee and advised that the Home Office\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request was refused.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr Applebee told Unite Live<\/em>, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just appalling. Surgeries shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be handing this data over and the Home Office shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be asking for it. This is an escalation of the shocking agreement with NHS Digital to disclose patient data and it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be stood for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur duty of care is to our patients. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not supposed to breach confidentially unless there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an overwhelming public interest and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually for very serious matters such as murder. Certainly not for a breach of immigration rules.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Breaking trust <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Applebee said breaking the trust between doctor and patient in such a way creates \u00e2\u20ac\u015bhuge public health issues\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf a patient thinks we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to report them to the Home Office they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seek healthcare in a timely manner,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Dr Applebee said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat increases the likelihood of them having to be treated as an emergency, which is much more expensive for the NHS<\/a>. It also makes it more difficult to control the spread of infectious diseases and creates problems like children not getting immunised.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr Applebee said Doctors in Unite will stand with any GP who is facing similar requests from the Home Office and called on surgeries to reject them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The request comes as Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempts to create a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bhostile environment for illegal immigrants<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including forcing landlords to carry out checks on the immigration status of tenants and the horrendous treatment of British citizens from the Windrush generation<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are coming under increasing scrutiny.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Applebee added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all part of that nasty anti-immigrant rhetoric the government are engaged in. They are trying to move the blame away from themselves and their policies onto people who are easy to target but who are really not to blame.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Home Office has refused to explain why it asked the GP surgery for the patient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s details directly, referring instead to its right to seek information about children and vulnerable people for safeguarding purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home Office immigration officers have asked an East London GP surgery to reveal a patient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address in what Unite has described as an \u00e2\u20ac\u015bappalling\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 attempt to co-opt health workers into monitoring migrants.   The request comes on the heels of NHS Digital, which manages health service databases, controversially agreeing to share patient information to help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[559,901,153,909],"wps_subtitle":"Immigration team asks GP to reveal patient\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15013"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15013"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26262,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15013\/revisions\/26262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}