Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has asked NHS Digital to establish and operate an information system for the collection and analysis of General Practice data for health and social care purposes. The original launch date was 23 June 2021 but this has now been pushed back until 1 September 2021.
NHS Digital has been directed to collect, process, analyse and disseminate general practice data. The data collection process is moving from the existing GP Extraction Service (GPES) to a new service, the General Practice Data for Planning and Research. The BMA, RCGP and National Data Guardian have been involved in this process.
This is a legal process. GP practices cannot opt out of this data extraction. The data will be used for:
- Research the long term impacts of coronavirus on the population;
- Analyse health care inequalities – for example to understand how people of different ethnicities access healthcare and how health outcomes in these groups compare to the rest of the population; and
- Research and develop cures for serious illnesses
Patient identifiable information will be pseudonomised before it leaves the practice. This is a process which takes personally identifiable data and changes it so that it cannot be attributed back to a specific person without additional processing.
Data collected will include NHS number, local patient ID, postcode, date of birth and date of death. Additional coded special category data will also be collected including Physical / Mental Health or Condition, Sexual Life / Orientation, Family / Lifestyle / Social Circumstance, Religion or Other Beliefs and Racial / Ethnic Origin.
Some data will not be collected. This data includes Name and Address, Written notes (free text), Images, letters and documents and Legally restricted codes for Gender Recognition, Human Fertilisation and Embryology. None of these items will be collected.
There are two types of opting out:
- Type 1 Opt Out – this is a patient opting out of NHS Digital Collecting your data. Patients can follow this link and print out a form to pass back to their GP Surgery: https://nhs-prod.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/content/assets/website-assets/data-and-information/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research/type-1-opt-out-form.docx
2. National Data Opt Out – opting out of NHS Digital Sharing your confidential data including GP data and Hospital data. To Opt Out a patient needs to follow the link below: https://www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters/ and do this online themselves. They must be over 13 years of age, have access to email/mobile phone and have their NHS number to do this.
For further information, please follow this link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research#top