Directions for GP extract to be approved

NHS England’s board is being asked to approve directions to the Health and Social Care Information Centre to start large monthly extracts of GP data.

The collection is a key component of the care.data programme which involves data being extracted from practices and linked with Hospital Episode Statistics to create new Care Episode Statistics.

The programme was “implemented” in June with 1% of GP practices. However, this was only a pilot of the publicity campaign to inform patients about care.data, rather than the start of data extraction.

Before this can begin, NHS England must publish directions to the HSCIC to establish a legal basis for the collection.

NHS England’s business plan, released in April, set a target for 75% of GP practices to be providing a full extract to care.data by September 2013.

However, the board is only being asked to approve directions – developed in consultation with the HSCIC, Department of Health, Information Commissioner’s Office and British Medical Association – at a meeting this Friday.

“NHS England will need to publish revised directions for future releases of care.data and other directions for other purposes. The limited scope of these directions has been helpful in providing assurance to stakeholders,” the board report says.

The monthly extract is based on four groups of data; patient demographics, events, referrals and prescriptions.

NHS England will not be requiring any patient names or addresses to be extracted or any free text. Also, no retrospective data prior to 1 April 2013.

Aggregated CES data will be published openly, but record level CES data will only be made available pseudonymously to accredited organisations, such as a clinical commissioning groups.

“The HSCIC is directed to disseminate data that are appropriately pseudonymised to NHS England and commissioning organisations and other health bodies or providers where it considers the request is reasonable and a written agreement is in place,” the board paper says.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has promised that patients can opt out of the data extraction.

This is being implemented using two codes in GP systems; one to indicate objection to the initial collection of GP identifiable data; and the other to indicate objection to onward disclosure following collection by the HSCIC.

The report says the ICO, HSCIC and NHS England are still considering whether the information centre is the sole data controller or whether NHS England and the HSCIC should be joint data controllers.