New Healthcare Debate: Are Healthcare Privacy Laws Needed in the UK?

Those of us in the United States are well aware of the ongoing debate over healthcare reform in our country, but that's not the only healthcare-related controversy going on in the world. The recent report on unprofessional postings to online services and social media sites by medical students (see my previous blog post here), while focused on US medical schools, drew quite a bit of attention in the UK, where outlets such as the BBC reported the story.

In the BBC story, a spokesperson for the British Medical Association is quoted as saying:

"Patient confidentiality is paramount and medical students and doctors obviously need to be very careful about any information they post online."

Now, SC Magazine UK has picked up on the story, noting in an interview with David Stanley, Proofpoint's managing director in EMEA that "there is a need for formal policies to be introduced that are similar to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the US."

David says that while there is no healthcare-specific privacy law in the UK, "formal policies need to be introduced and those involved need to be educated, with serious repercussions to all who fall foul of the rules."

This is not to say that British healthcare organizations aren't trying to protect private patient data (see, for example, how Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has rolled out Proofpoint to protect private medical information in email), but they aren't necessarily mandated to do so.

So what about it, UK readers? Should the UK adopt HIPAA-type healthcare privacy regulations?