Doctors unearth major flaws in controversial new NHS database

London: Fresh fears have been raised about a controversial new National Health Service (NHS) database after doctors found that one in ten of the medical records held on a pilot version of the system are inaccurate.

Doctors' leaders warned last night that glitches in the £600 million scheme, known as the Spine, could put the lives of patients at risk because they could be given the wrong medicine.

The British Medical Association (BMA) called on ministers to suspend the project.

Under the scheme, GPs upload their patients records from computers in their surgeries on to the national database so that doctors in other parts of the country can use the details in an emergency.

But the level of errors on the database was revealed at a meeting of managers of a pilot project in south Birmingham last week.

GPs were told that for a range of reasons, ten per cent of their patients records had not been updated on the national system to reflect changes in their conditions, such as new allergies.

Dr Robert Morley, a senior Birmingham doctor and a member of the BMA's GPs committee, said: The fact is that in Birmingham one in ten patients have been put at risk from inaccurate data.