The Fisher Medical Centre is a fully computerized paperless practice caring for 13,500 patients (255 diabetics) in Skipton, North Yorkshire. The St Vincent Declaration encourages the establishment of national/district diabetic registers to facilitate the provision, monitoring and planning of health-care for people with diabetes. Over the past two years there has been a lively debate between the UK government, the British Medical Association (BMA), the British Diabetic Association (BDA) and people with diabetes over the establishment, control and function of such registers. We decided to ask our practice diabetic patients their views on the use of personal medical information to construct a district/national diabetic register. The results of our survey indicate that diabetic patients wish to give consent for the storage on computer and sharing of their personal health records and are in general only too happy for their records to be shared with other health professionals involved in their care. Our diabetic patients also stated a strong preference for proposed regional diabetic registers to hold only non-identifiable or summary patient information.
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