The Government has admitted it wants to store patients’ DNA samples on the new NHS computer system.Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo says her ‘long-term objective’ is to put people’s genetic profiles on the £12billion Connecting For Health database. The Connecting For Health register – due to come online in 2012 – will hold the electronic medical records of everyone in the UK.
But many fear it will breach patient confidentiality, as a million doctors, nurses and receptionists will have access to it. The surprising admissions came out of a House of Lords inquiry into genetic medicine last month.When asked if it was ‘valuable to combine genetic data with personal medical data’, Prof Davies replied: ‘The Government is absolutely determined to exploit this research opportunity.’