Still think it’s a good idea to have a massive online database of records accessible by all and sundry when they get up to this kind of thing :

A woman who arrived at a hospital for an appointment was told she had died as staff searched her medical records.

Sylvia Slingsby, from Thurnscoe, South Yorkshire, visited Barnsley Hospital on Friday.

She was told that she did not have an appointment and when staff investigated, they discovered she was down as being deceased in her records.

Barnsley Hospital has apologised for any distress caused and said the mistake was due to “human error”.

Human error again eh. It’s a good job that the government hasn’t managed to combine all the departments records into one monolithic database or that human error would have caused no end of misery.

I can just envisage the scene with the NHS desk drone saying, sorry, computer says you are dead :

Mrs Slingsby said: “When I gave them my letter they said that I didn’t have an appointment that day.

“They looked it up on the computer and then they told me that I was deceased.

Barnsley hospital (which has a certain reputation around these parts) is learnign lessons as is the usual response when a government department has fucked something up completely :

A spokesperson from Barnsley Hospital said in a statement: “We are sorry for the distress caused to Mrs Slingsby.

“We are currently investigating the circumstances around this case and will put any necessary procedures in place to prevent this from happening in the future.

“Although we follow strict measures to ensure that medical records are maintained correctly, on this occasion the mistake was due to human error.”

I am glad I sent in the forms to keep my records offline now, not that it prevents the all pervasive human error from making a dogs dinner of what records they have of course.