Patient Online Services

[Mr Pointy]

My local GP practice has made direct access difficult & is now trying to get everyone to register for Online Services. To this end they have sent a list of providers from which they want me to select one to sign up with:

Patient Access https://www.patientaccess.com
Evergreen Life https://e-life.co.uk/
Co-op Health https://www.coop.co.uk/myhealth
myGP https://www.ilovemygp.com/
digi.me https://digi.me/nhs
Echo Pharmacy https://echo.co.uk/signup
AT Tech https://dr-iq.com/
Pharmacy2U Ltd https://im1.pharmacy2u.co.uk
Medloop https://medloop.co/uk-app/
Boots UK https://boots.com/nhs
My Way Digital Health https://patient.diabetesmyway.nhs.uk/register/
C Sharp Solutions https://patally.co.uk/
Patients Know Best https://patientsknowbest.com/gp
Redwood Technologies https://portal.practiceplus.co.uk
Healthera Ltd https://healthera.co.uk
Doctorlink https://www.doctorlink.com/patients/
Digital Medical Supply UK LTD https://kry.se/api/im1-service/
Nurturey - the digital Redbook https://www.nurturey.com

Needless to say the practice won't recommend any particular provider or take any responsibility if there are any issues.

Who are these companies? Is any of them more reliable & secure than the others? What is the risk to my medical data ending up in the wrong hands?

[Mr Pointy]

Thanks for the response but this doesn't seem to be for just getting repeat prescriptions it also needed for booking appointments & it seems I will have access to my medical records as well. I'd like to know a bit more about where my information is going before I sign up.

I had a similar argument with my dentist who wanted all sorts of medical information submitting to a third party organisation they had outsourced record keeping to. I pointed out that the privacy policy expressly gave them the right to sell all patient data as a company asset should they go bust & allowed any subcontractor they engaged to have access to patient data. Of course no subbie has ever left a USB stick or CD on a train before now.

[Mr Pointy]

Thanks everyone for the responses. Maybe they were trying to tell me something by putting Patient Access at the top of the list so it looks like I'll go with them. I'd still llike to know how secure patient data is.

[Mr Pointy]

tjl said:

I think it’s pretty secure. I had to put in a 12 digit password or something crazy like that.

That's not really what I'm talking about though. As I said before one outfit wanted me to agree that patient data could be issued to any subcontractors they engaged with no indication of whether the subcontractors were subject to the same internal security standards as the company itself.

[Mr Pointy]

Well that wasn't very reassuring sign up process to Patient Access. The Register page asks you to create a password:

"Your new password must be at least 12 characters long with a mix of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters and should not have been previously used"

So I get Lastpass to generate a 12 character password with numbers, uppercase & lowercase letters & get the following error message back:

"One of the following symbols must be used: *! # $ % £ . - ? @ _ | ^ ~ : "

What an excellent piece of coding there. If they can't get the most basic user interface right heavens knows how what is going on in the back end.