HOSPITAL plans to share confidential patient records with Google have been described as “violating”.

The Royal Free, Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals will give the search engine’s artificial intelligence arm, DeepMind, full names and patient histories from the last five years and until 2017.

It will use the data to develop an app known as Streams, an early warning system for patients at risk of developing kidney injuries.

A 64-year-old, who has been treated by Barnet Hospital, described it as “violating and outrageous” and criticised the lack of consultation.

West Finchley resident Ben Jackson, 30, who has recently had heart surgery, said: “I am not a fan of sharing patient data all over the place.

“I think it could make people uncomfortable about going to hospital, it’s supposed to be a private thing. However, in principle the app will probably be a good thing.”

Labour leader Barry Rawlings described the app as “useful” but has doubts about the way it is being done.

He said: “Patient confidentiality is vital for people to have trust in the health service. It could be a useful and beneficial app if the information is anonymous – without those assurances I would be against it.”

A spokesperson for the Royal Free Hospital, who was not named, said: “Absolutely no patient-identifiable data is shared with DeepMind. All information sent to and processed is encrypted and is only decrypted once returned to the clinician’s device.

“Our arrangement with DeepMind is the standard NHS information-sharing agreement set out by NHS England’s corporate information governance department, and is the same as the other 1,500 agreements with third-party organisations that process NHS patient data.

"As with all information sharing agreements with non-NHS organisations, patients can opt out of any data-sharing system by contacting the trust’s data protection officer."

Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder at DeepMind, said: "We are working with clinicians at the Royal Free to understand how technology can best help clinicians recognise patient deterioration.

"We have, and will always, hold ourselves to the highest possible standards of patient data protection. This data will only ever be used for the purposes of improving healthcare and will never be linked with Google accounts or products."