Care.data: How did it go so wrong?


Nick Triggle writes for the BBC:

There comes a point when the weight of criticism becomes so much that the dam bursts.

For NHS England – and its Care.data project – that point was reached on Tuesday.

When you have a group of bodies as disparate as the British Medical Association, privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch and the Association of Medical Research Charities united in their condemnation, you know you have a problem.

The organisation has defused the problem for now by agreeing to delay the data-sharing project by six months.

But how did it get to this point? After all, the concept of the giant database has the backing of almost the entire medical community, many charities and some of the most influential patient groups.