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The National Health Service is worshipped by the Brits, not least those who don’t have to queue up to use it.

But when you subject it to scrutiny, it soon reveals itself to be taking the most astonishing liberties.

“Our NHS,” as Brits like to call it, started very, very quietly hawking people’s medical notes in 2021—or as they put it, sharing them for research purposes.

This came as a huge shock to most people when they eventually found out, because this incredible change in their patient rights—in their basic human rights—was not publicly announced with any kind of fanfare or warning.

It was simply legally presumed that you agreed, unless you found out and specified otherwise, and as this was during the pandemic, people were a bit preoccupied.

The NHS is not just an arm of the state, it is a very strong arm. I would argue the strongest arm. It has a powerful emotional hold over people. It knows all the tricks. I don’t see it as benign, doling out “free” health care for all.

That is a romantic idea but not how it works out in practice: more like some pretty average to poor health care for some people who get to the front of the queue in time if they’re lucky, and not at all free because the bill was in their sky-high taxes. Any dealings I’ve had with it have been nightmarish, but maybe that’s just me.

In any case, most people seem to like the idea, so they go on paying for it (and not getting much of it) with their National Insurance Contributions.

When you weigh up the tax you pay, the control the NHS takes, and the odd A&E dash with a broken limb they might fix right if it’s not too busy, or cataract operation you might qualify for in your 80s if you don’t go blind before they get round to you, it’s a very poor bargain. Nevertheless, belief in the NHS persists as a sort of national religion, the only thing Brits take pride in, due to the relentless PR campaign persuading them they own it—“Our NHS.” (Very clever. People don’t like to criticize what they feel is theirs.)

Meanwhile, the control the NHS exerts over citizens is kept very much under wraps, so as not to tarnish its golden, angelic reputation.

You would only know your medical records were about to become fair game for Big Pharma if you happened to come across a very vague warning that some general practitioners’ offices put out, in an email or text to patients.

If you could then work out how to do it, you could have stopped your notes becoming unsecured by going on to the NHS central website and negotiating a very long and complex process to “Choose if your confidential patient information is used for research and planning.”

You could opt out unless you wanted your private notes, your private conversations with your doctor, used for “purposes beyond your individual care and treatment.” Who would? Seriously?

It was made clear on this website at the start of this change that there is no deadline for opting out of the NHS sharing your confidential patient information. You can make your choice at any time. The problem is, unless you knew this was happening and opted out before the start of it happening, by the time you do find out, your medical notes have kind of been let out of the bag. You can’t exactly get your confidential chats with your doctor back into the bag once the bag has been plundered, if you see what I mean.

I managed to opt out in time, and it wasn’t easy. It was one of those forms where unless you tick all the boxes, including some quite hidden ones, the change did not register.

I persevered and completed the form, much to the system’s disgust. It triggered warnings tantamount to the middle-seat threat when you book a budget airline ticket and try to select random seat allocation to avoid spending more money.

“Are you sure you wish to proceed with preventing the manufacture of essential medicines, potentially killing millions of innocent children in the third world?” That sort of thing.

I then told everyone I knew about it. My friends and family—who, to be fair to them, were coming to terms with me being an anti-vaxxer—all told me I was mad.

Then they checked it out and came back to say, actually, I was right. They couldn’t believe it. Their NHS was about to assume they agreed to their medical data being passed around.

A few weeks ago, people were not alerted properly to a second phase of this process.

Another initiative, billed as nothing to worry about, was quietly alluded to by the health secretary Wes Streeting.

Just a bit of “streamlining” and “digitizing” how your medical notes are stored and accessed and by whom, he said.

Any employee within the NHS, which employs 1.5 million people, will now be able to access your notes—not just your doctor—and pass them around the entire health care system, which includes the social care system and probably intersects with welfare and policing in certain circumstances deemed health and safety or safeguarding, let’s face it.

I think we have to assume that any state operative can now have a good old poke around a person’s medical history—and mine would furnish them with plenty of juicy goings-on during my misspent youth, along with my recent vaccine hesitancy.

Mr. Streeting, 41, who underwent surgery for kidney cancer in 2021, only to find another lump in his body recently that had to be investigated, seems to have an undimmed enthusiasm for developing ever more newfangled drugs and vaccines.

He said he wants to “transform healthcare in England” by working with big tech and pharma companies to develop new treatments, saying he would get the “best possible deal” for the NHS. I bet he will. But will he get the best and, more important, the safest treatments for us—and himself?

Despite fears over breaching privacy and creating a target for hackers, our entire medical history will be readable by anyone with access to the system, and whomever they decide to leak it to.

They have promised a “cast-iron guarantee of security” for patient data. So we know the security will be rubbish.

The health secretary told The Guardian the development will mean “the NHS can work hand in hand with the life sciences sector, offering access to our large and diverse set of data.” Our data.

And without further ado, he unveiled plans for “portable medical records” giving every NHS patient all their information stored digitally in one handy place.

Handy for us, or handy for Them? And no wonder people in the States worry about American versions of public health care. Worry away, I say. Worry you’ll be tagged and counted and subjected to this shit if you’re not careful, and for what? The chance to join a queue for some free hospital treatments you might get or you might die first because the wait is so long?

Mr. Streeting said: “The revolution taking place today in science and technology will transform the way we receive healthcare.” And then he invoked the sainted socialist name of Nye Bevan to seal the deal.

All stand for the national health anthem! Sound of trumpets and moving brass-band music…

“Nye Bevan would have had no idea in 1948, but the model he created makes the NHS the best-placed healthcare system in the world to take advantage of rapid advances in data, genomics, predictive and preventative medicine.”

You’re darn right Bevan had no idea that was gonna happen…

“It allows us to introduce patient passports, so whether you’re seeing a GP or a hospital surgeon, they have your full medical history. We will be able to judge a child’s risk of disease from birth, so they can take steps to prevent it striking.”

See how he sneaked that through? They’re resurrecting a terrifying behemoth. Vaccine passports, if you remember, ran aground when enough people pointed out they were monstrous. But here we see the concept revived, slightly rebranded. Patient passports.

The way this works, I think, is that in the not-so-distant future your GP contacts you and calls you in to tell you that these are the injections you and your children will need to have this year. This is what the system is coming up with for you and your family, tailor-made for your requirements. Lucky you.

What do you mean, you don’t want it? You’ve been selected to receive it by the system! This is science. The system and the science are never wrong!

Now let’s imagine some leakage scenarios. At some point in the future all vaccinations including Covid and cancer are mandatory. Despite being called up for them, you’ve managed to simply pay a series of fines, but then your doctor loses patience with you and leaks your vaccine refusal to the police.

You’re charged, convicted, and imprisoned for two years for endangering public health, and your children are taken into care. At the end of one year you’re offered early release if you comply and have the vaccines recommended to you.

It probably won’t be that scenario. It will be another one. But I bet it will be just as scary.