The former shadow home secretary David Davis has voiced his concerns on Tory plans to store patient records with commercial IT companies such as Google and Microsoft, describing the decision as “naive” and “dangerous”.

He argued that although the NHS data centre is already bloated, storing records remotely will pose great security threats in the potential misuse of information and supported the idea that patients should be able to nominate where their data is kept.

Davis has suggested that private companies are better than the state but improvements will still need to be made to ensure maximum security, such as clear structures and rules for data management to guarantee that whether records are stored with private or commercial companies, they are always secure.

While using cloud computing to manage patient data does have its benefits, by storing information locally trusts are able to have more control over who can access the information, and if a patient requests their data it is easily accessible while still remaining secure.

Ardentia’s business intelligence are customised to meet the specific needs of each individual trust, PCT, or strategic health authority.  Every organisation is different, and so a one-stop-shop approach simply does not work.  Customised business intelligence better meets internal reporting requirements and individual operating structures, and also better supports the varying levels of access required.

A centrally-managed super-cloud solution would simply not work well within the NHS environment – far more effective is to have a highly customisable solution to meet the data analysis and reporting requirements at trust level.