English GPs To Start Sharing Anonymised Patient Data

The NHS in England will start collecting anonymised patient information from GPs to improve the quality of care provided outside of hospitals, as well as create economic benefits for UK industry.

The Department of Health will deliver leaflets to 26.5 million households over the course of January, explaining how the data will be used. Patients can opt out of the scheme by contacting the NHS information line or talking directly to their GP.

The collection process is expected to begin in March. However, due to the NHS’s track record in handling personal data, some consider it to be a huge privacy risk.

Caring is sharing

The NHS has been collecting data from hospitals for over a decade. Now, it will enhance its databases with patient information held by GPs, in order to help monitor the spread of diseases and the effectiveness of treatments, so it can plan services accordingly.

The initiative, first outlined by the Department of Health in May 2012, could help cut costs and identify areas that need more investment.

Data collection and analysis will be handled by the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) – which incidentally won a Tech Success Award for Big Data from TechWeek in 2013. It will be made available to researchers and other interested parties, and could eventually be opened to the public. HSCIC has made assurances that it will be impossible to trace anonymised information back to individuals.

“GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups are currently responsible for determining where approximately £80 billion of the NHS budget is spent so it is vital that GP data is more effectively utilised,” explained Prahlad Koti, head of government and health at Mastek.

“Having access to patient data from primary as well as the current secondary care providers will allow practitioners to make sure that NHS money goes further by identifying services such as dermatology and scans, which are currently being delivered in secondary care but could be provided in the community.”

Critics of the scheme say it’s very difficult to process healthcare data in a way that would make it untraceable. In addition, the NHS has earned quite a reputation for mishandling patient data.

For example, in October 2011, Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust lost the confidential records of 800 patients on an unencrypted USB stick. In April 2012, Aneurin Bevan Health Board in Wales was hit with a £70,000 penalty after a sensitive report – containing explicit details relating to a patient’s health – was sent to the wrong person.

A month later, the Information Commissioner’s Office issued its biggest ever fine to date, slapping the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust with a £325,000 penalty for failing to dispose of sensitive data correctly. And in July 2013 NHS Surrey was ordered to pay £200,000 after over 3,000 patient records, including 2,000 related to children, were found on a second-hand machine sold on eBay.

The Department of Health says it will take all possible precautions to make sure patient data is safe. “We want everyone to feel confident that their information is kept private and used in non-identifiable form to improve the quality of health and social care for everyone,” said Mark Davies, medical director at the HSCIC.

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