GPs to text patients urging them to change unhealthy habits

GPs to text patients urging them to change unhealthy habits under radical new proposals from health secretary

• Patients could be sent text messages urging them to change unhealthy habits 
• Matt Hancock wants to use data from patients’ own medical records to work out their risk of developing certain illnesses
• The patients would then be sent targeted public health advice via a text or email

Patients could be sent text messages urging them to change unhealthy habits under radical proposals from the Health Secretary.

Matt Hancock wants to use data from patients’ own medical records – as well as more general information on population trends – to work out their risk of developing certain illnesses.

Patients would then be sent targeted public health advice via an app, email or text message which is based on their specific risk.

Health secretary Matt Hancock wants to use data from patients’ own medical records, alongside population trends, to work out their risk of developing certain illnesses

Mr Hancock believes it would be far more effective than blanket campaigns on obesity, smoking and drinking.

A middle-aged adult with high blood pressure – who was overweight and drank a glass of wine a night – would be urged to cut back on alcohol, diet and take more exercise.

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The policy, known as ‘predictive prevention’, is only in the very early stages and officials at Public Health England are yet to determine exactly how it will work in practice.

But the idea of using patients’ confidential medical records to find out about their behaviour and lifestyle is likely to fuel both privacy and nannying concerns.

Mr Hancock outlined plans for predictive prevention at a series of talks at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham earlier this week

Two years ago the Government was forced to abandon the hugely controversial ‘Care.data’ scheme, which intended to harvest medical records for research purposes. 

Campaigners feared data would be hacked or passed to insurers.

Mr Hancock outlined plans for predictive prevention at a series of talks at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham earlier this week.

He pointed out that in the past, family doctors knew their patients so well that they were able to give them targeted advice.

But times have changed and many patients see different GPs, often a locum they have never met.

Under the new proposals patients could be sent text messages urging them to change unhealthy habits via an app, email or text message

Mr Hancock said: ‘Public health has essentially dealt with populations as a whole – the anti-smoking campaign on TV is targeted at everybody.

‘But using data, both medical data – appropriately safeguarded of course for privacy reasons – and other demographic data, you can work out somebody might have a higher propensity to smoke.

‘Then you can target interventions much more closely.’

Mr Hancock wants Government officials to work out which illnesses and unhealthy habits groups of patients are most likely to develop.

Middle-aged middle-class adults tend to drink more alcohol than the general population. 

Obesity rates are typically higher in more deprived parts of the country.

Last night, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said the scheme was ‘interesting’.

But she added: ‘It is essential that any patient data is treated securely, confidentially and responsibly – and if patients consent to it being used, that they are completely clear what it may be used for.’

 

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