I have been reading about the ‘pros and cons’ of allowing our personal medical records to be stored on an NHS super database.

Personally, I have no objection in principle to data collection since it is an essential tool in anyone’s toolbox never mind a doctor’s.

However, the fact that subscribers can remain anonymous doesn’t answer a problem I have.

Just raw data about the symptomatic progress of diseases and how patients have reacted to various medicines and placebos is an enormously valuable asset.

Our names and addresses are actually irrelevant. One hospital in USA has found that leaving diagnoses to its computer database is much more accurate than relying on doctors’ personal experience.

Such a database would represent an extremely valuable asset to the private health sector which would love to get its hands on it.

But, it would be derived from the countless £billions we spent on initiating and developing the NHS, enabling the recording of case histories and research on various forms of treatment. It is invaluable.

For example, a company’s customer files would be a huge benefit to a predator competitor seeking to take it over and ‘asset strip’ its ‘crown jewels’.

The new owner would subsequently know just what his acquired customers most needed.

Similarly, our NHS records would give private health providers the means to dish out data-proven treatments and even ‘target advertise’ their ‘cures’ on social media.

I know people who due to Covid 19 delays have been obliged to stump up £2,000 an eye for surgery for glaucoma or a cataract taking only about 30 minutes. Volunteer ophthalmic surgeons who work for ORBIS, the eye charity, treat various sight-threatening eye diseases like these for only £77 a time!

What has the world come to?

There are numerous solutions to mankind’s ailments available at low cost but these basic societal benefits appear to be restricted to only those who can afford them.

Meanwhile, the world’s leaders BBQ on a beach well away from the outcomes they have been complicit in creating while people die elsewhere by the million.

MIKE JOSLIN

Garfield Avenue, Dorchester