Junior doctors' details exposed online in MTAS fiasco
Adding insult to injury? The intimate details of thousands of junior doctors are left wide open on the internet. The Medical Training Application Service or MTAS is a computer system where student and junior doctors apply for jobs - an IT system which they were repeatedly assured by Labour ministers was secure.
Channel Four News revealled that since at least 9 o' clock this morning, the details of medical students applying for foundation course posts - the first year to become a junior doctor - were openly available to the public.
This is astonishing. Not only could they see what the doctors wrote in their applications; their addresses; their phone numbers; who their referees are. They could also see if there were white, heterosexual, gay Asian, Christian, Jewish or Hindu, and also if they have got police records and what the crime was.
Channel 4: Once we were informed we checked the site to see if there had been a massive breach of this already controversial system - and there had been.
At 4.35pm we told the Department of Health. The chair of the British Medical Association's Junior Doctors Committee also called the department - at 5.05 they closed the breach - it took them just half an hour.
They were completely unaware that it had been open - at a minimum since this morning.
"I am absolutely appalled to get in and see this information - I am just flabbergasted."- Jo Hilborne, BMA junior doctors committee.
What's more, the doctor who told Channel 4 News that there was this problem did not come to us initially. He went to the Information Commissioners Office - the custodians of data protection. They said there wasn't much they could do.
Junior doctors have been protesting against MTAS since the outset. Today, their action group Remedy UK, condemned this hole in the security.
"I'm absolutely gob-smacked, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm not going to be able to laugh because it's so serious. After I've scraped my jaw up off the floor I'll say that I'm not really surprised - it's a level of ineptitude that has characterised this whole procecss. It takes the concept of a botched IT job just to a new dimension." - Matt Jameson-Evans, Remedy UK
No Minister was available for interview tonight. Instead they issued this statement:
"We apologise to any applicants whose details have been improperly accessed. This URL was made available to a strictly limited number of people making checks as part of the employment process. This is a very serious matter and is under investigation. "
When MTAS was launched in January - it kept crashing, listed the wrong jobs, some of the best candidates were excluded from posts and the application period had to be extended.
The Health Secretary last week apologised for the distress it caused junior doctors but yesterday she said this: "It has not been a complete unmitigated disaster...has been working well particularly for GP posts." - Patricia Hewitt
Experts say the level of data included in the applications makes it a gold mine for identity theft and fraud. It is also likely to be a breach of the data protection act and could lead to criminal charges.
Throughout the junior doctors' recruitment saga, Channel 4 has been asking the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to appear on the programme, but she's always declined - and tonight was no exception.
Joining us instead was the Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who's at Westminster:
Q - Your reaction?
A - Well I think it's shocking. I think this is a very serious matter. It's something which should never have happened. It's something which clearly is going to further undermine what is already desperately low morale amongst junior doctors, many of whom have indeed as you said suffered considerable disadvantage to the way this system is working.
People we're trying to give greater confidence to, and the department should have understood that, and I don't think the department can say this was something they shouldn't have been aware of. The risks to the security of the site had been highlighted to them before.
I have with me here with me a letter from the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association of the 5th of March to Patricia Hewitt, highlighting risks to security on the site because shortlisters for interview had access not only to the applicants they were shortlisting but to everybody in their region. Now if there were security lapses more than a month ago clearly there ought to have been much heightened security on the site since then.
Q - Looking at it from the perspective of the doctors who have been affected they have really no redress. Their addresses are out there, their details are out there and there is little more sensitive to a doctor than the privacy of where they live. Once a doctor's place of life is exposed, they are themselves in danger.
A - Well I hope it is the case that this data has not gone in too many directions, but we can't, I guess you can't be at all sure about the extent to which this data has become available and to whom it's become available.
Q - The extraordinary thing is MTAS the people who run this site say it wasn't open for very long. The truth is you and I both know they don't know.
A - That's right and it's very important therefore that the information commissioner should investigate this and do so urgently. You say the junior doctors have no redress but frankly there should be redress under the data protection acts. There should be redress against anybody who is responsible for such a serious breach of people's data confidentiality. But frankly, I come back to the point I was making a moment ago. We know that more than a month ago there was a risk to security.
It was a different one but concerned access to data for those who were being interviewed so that everybody doing shortlisting in a region saw everybody's data not just the people they were responsible for in their particular narrow specialty. That was a serious lapse, this is another and more serious lapse. I'm afraid it's another, it's a catalogue of these failures.
Q - One thing we can be sure of is that there will be no political consequence to this.
A - There are a range of serious consequences to this. You have not been able to bring ministers or Patricia Hewitt to your studio to answer questions. Back on March 19 I was able to bring Patricia Hewitt to the House of Commons for the first time to answer questions in person. Yesterday afternoon we brought her to the House of Commons, you showed the debate there. It's on our time. She didn't volunteer to come to the House.
Q - Given that there is yet another issue here tonight. Is it a resignation matter?
A - We've arrived at the point where there is no confidence in Patricia Hewitt. I know that in a few weeks time the Prime Minister will be leaving. There will be a new Prime Minister.
Q - Does no confidence amount for a call for her to go?
A - She will go. I have no doubt about that. There is no realistic prospect of Patricia Hewitt commanding confidence in the national health service anymore. The junior doctors have completely lost confidence in her and that is true as we saw in the way in which Unison received health ministers, in the way in which the Royal College of Nursing criticised her last week.
From:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/exclusive+junior+doctors+details+exposed+online/469137
Health Direct notes through the Financial Times that despite the truely inept Labour politicans activities Doctors have not lost their sense of humour. In yesterday' FT Observer Section:
We'll call you
Junior hospital doctors may be rightly incandescent over the new training and interview system known as Modernising Medical Careers. But at least they have not lost their sense of humour. A motion for their annual conference on Saturday calls on Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, to resign and reapply for her job using the online application form that has roused their ire.
This would mean, the motion notes, that none of her experience would count, the scoring of her skills would be arbitrary, the website would crash at the crucial moment and she wouldn't get an interview - all experiences that the juniors say have been their daily lot. They say laughter is the best medicine.
From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fb246a92-f1ff-11db-b5b6-000b5df10621.html
Channel Four News revealled that since at least 9 o' clock this morning, the details of medical students applying for foundation course posts - the first year to become a junior doctor - were openly available to the public.
This is astonishing. Not only could they see what the doctors wrote in their applications; their addresses; their phone numbers; who their referees are. They could also see if there were white, heterosexual, gay Asian, Christian, Jewish or Hindu, and also if they have got police records and what the crime was.
Channel 4: Once we were informed we checked the site to see if there had been a massive breach of this already controversial system - and there had been.
At 4.35pm we told the Department of Health. The chair of the British Medical Association's Junior Doctors Committee also called the department - at 5.05 they closed the breach - it took them just half an hour.
They were completely unaware that it had been open - at a minimum since this morning.
"I am absolutely appalled to get in and see this information - I am just flabbergasted."- Jo Hilborne, BMA junior doctors committee.
What's more, the doctor who told Channel 4 News that there was this problem did not come to us initially. He went to the Information Commissioners Office - the custodians of data protection. They said there wasn't much they could do.
Junior doctors have been protesting against MTAS since the outset. Today, their action group Remedy UK, condemned this hole in the security.
"I'm absolutely gob-smacked, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm not going to be able to laugh because it's so serious. After I've scraped my jaw up off the floor I'll say that I'm not really surprised - it's a level of ineptitude that has characterised this whole procecss. It takes the concept of a botched IT job just to a new dimension." - Matt Jameson-Evans, Remedy UK
No Minister was available for interview tonight. Instead they issued this statement:
"We apologise to any applicants whose details have been improperly accessed. This URL was made available to a strictly limited number of people making checks as part of the employment process. This is a very serious matter and is under investigation. "
When MTAS was launched in January - it kept crashing, listed the wrong jobs, some of the best candidates were excluded from posts and the application period had to be extended.
The Health Secretary last week apologised for the distress it caused junior doctors but yesterday she said this: "It has not been a complete unmitigated disaster...has been working well particularly for GP posts." - Patricia Hewitt
Experts say the level of data included in the applications makes it a gold mine for identity theft and fraud. It is also likely to be a breach of the data protection act and could lead to criminal charges.
Throughout the junior doctors' recruitment saga, Channel 4 has been asking the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to appear on the programme, but she's always declined - and tonight was no exception.
Joining us instead was the Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who's at Westminster:
Q - Your reaction?
A - Well I think it's shocking. I think this is a very serious matter. It's something which should never have happened. It's something which clearly is going to further undermine what is already desperately low morale amongst junior doctors, many of whom have indeed as you said suffered considerable disadvantage to the way this system is working.
People we're trying to give greater confidence to, and the department should have understood that, and I don't think the department can say this was something they shouldn't have been aware of. The risks to the security of the site had been highlighted to them before.
I have with me here with me a letter from the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association of the 5th of March to Patricia Hewitt, highlighting risks to security on the site because shortlisters for interview had access not only to the applicants they were shortlisting but to everybody in their region. Now if there were security lapses more than a month ago clearly there ought to have been much heightened security on the site since then.
Q - Looking at it from the perspective of the doctors who have been affected they have really no redress. Their addresses are out there, their details are out there and there is little more sensitive to a doctor than the privacy of where they live. Once a doctor's place of life is exposed, they are themselves in danger.
A - Well I hope it is the case that this data has not gone in too many directions, but we can't, I guess you can't be at all sure about the extent to which this data has become available and to whom it's become available.
Q - The extraordinary thing is MTAS the people who run this site say it wasn't open for very long. The truth is you and I both know they don't know.
A - That's right and it's very important therefore that the information commissioner should investigate this and do so urgently. You say the junior doctors have no redress but frankly there should be redress under the data protection acts. There should be redress against anybody who is responsible for such a serious breach of people's data confidentiality. But frankly, I come back to the point I was making a moment ago. We know that more than a month ago there was a risk to security.
It was a different one but concerned access to data for those who were being interviewed so that everybody doing shortlisting in a region saw everybody's data not just the people they were responsible for in their particular narrow specialty. That was a serious lapse, this is another and more serious lapse. I'm afraid it's another, it's a catalogue of these failures.
Q - One thing we can be sure of is that there will be no political consequence to this.
A - There are a range of serious consequences to this. You have not been able to bring ministers or Patricia Hewitt to your studio to answer questions. Back on March 19 I was able to bring Patricia Hewitt to the House of Commons for the first time to answer questions in person. Yesterday afternoon we brought her to the House of Commons, you showed the debate there. It's on our time. She didn't volunteer to come to the House.
Q - Given that there is yet another issue here tonight. Is it a resignation matter?
A - We've arrived at the point where there is no confidence in Patricia Hewitt. I know that in a few weeks time the Prime Minister will be leaving. There will be a new Prime Minister.
Q - Does no confidence amount for a call for her to go?
A - She will go. I have no doubt about that. There is no realistic prospect of Patricia Hewitt commanding confidence in the national health service anymore. The junior doctors have completely lost confidence in her and that is true as we saw in the way in which Unison received health ministers, in the way in which the Royal College of Nursing criticised her last week.
From:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/exclusive+junior+doctors+details+exposed+online/469137
Health Direct notes through the Financial Times that despite the truely inept Labour politicans activities Doctors have not lost their sense of humour. In yesterday' FT Observer Section:
We'll call you
Junior hospital doctors may be rightly incandescent over the new training and interview system known as Modernising Medical Careers. But at least they have not lost their sense of humour. A motion for their annual conference on Saturday calls on Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, to resign and reapply for her job using the online application form that has roused their ire.
This would mean, the motion notes, that none of her experience would count, the scoring of her skills would be arbitrary, the website would crash at the crucial moment and she wouldn't get an interview - all experiences that the juniors say have been their daily lot. They say laughter is the best medicine.
From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fb246a92-f1ff-11db-b5b6-000b5df10621.html
Labels: disaster, Doctors, Labour shambles, MTAS
posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic at
3:03 PM
2 Comments:
3rd May 07
If Junior doctors are `incandescent` at having private and personal details exposed online re interviews, how do they think patients feel when they read their medical notes ?
After a paid, private appointment, Mr Martin Stone, Gynaecologist and Expert Witness in Newport, Gwent wrote a letter to my GP in 1982 which was a mixture of libel and malicious gossip. This letter has been on file without my knowledge for 23 years and I estimate that about 100 people (surgery staff and checking office staff) over the years will have had a damn good laugh at my expense and gained a false impression of me.
Martin Stone wrote a 1 and 1/2 line letter of apology in Feb 07 but no mention of compensation to which I feel entitled. Solicitors say letter is `damning` but libel is prohibitively costly. ICO, GMC, DOH, Welsh Office, Ombudsman all say they cannot help. It must be nice to be so teflon coated !
Doctors of any description need to
realise that privacy is a 2 way street. If you can`t take it - don`t dish it out in the first place !
Laura E. Thomas, St Austell, Cornwall. 01726 824169
By
CATHERINE, at 7:06 PM
Hello Catherine
Thank you for your comment.
I agree with you entirely that if the labour govt can't keep the personal, private details of several thousand Doctors secure what hope is there for the 60 million patients- whose data will be available to over a MILLION people?
Which is another reason why Health Direct campaigns against the disgraceful £12 billion IT white elephant that is Connected for Health.
There are a growing number of people like you who have had very little assistance from the Information Commissioner and the authorities and have had to fight for years to rectify their incorrect medical records.
Wishing you the best
Health Direct
By
Wise Money, at 8:13 AM
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