Sir, – The destruction of medical records in the case of the PKU data is wholly unnecessary (“Calls for ‘priceless resource’ of heel prick test results to be saved”, Health + Family, February 5th) . It is relatively straightforward to digitise these records and then subject them to a process of reversible anonymisation.
This would mean that they are still available for research in the future, they cannot be linked to named individuals without authorisation, but they can be properly linked to other anonymised datasets.
These large health datasets are of huge value, their destruction is senseless and irreversible and the minister should reconsider this matter. – Yours, etc