_social_media.jpg "What’s happening with your NHS data?")
What’s happening with your NHS data?
We’ve been asked by readers about a forthcoming change in the way the NHS in England shares patient data, the various opt-outs available to the public and whether the data is really being sold.
From September 2021, NHS Digital will start collecting patient data from GP medical records in England about any living patient, including children, and any data about patients who died after the collection started.
This is called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research data collection, and NHS Digital says it will be used to help the NHS improve health and care services by allowing it to plan better, prevent the spread of infectious diseases, help with research and monitor the long-term safety and effectiveness of care.
NHS Digital will collect information on diagnoses, symptoms, test results, medications, information about physical, mental and sexual health, a person’s sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation and which staff have treated them.
The data collection won’t include people’s names or where they live. Of course, that’s not the only information that can identify someone. Other details, like NHS numbers, postcodes and dates of birth, which can identify people, will go through a process called pseudonymisation, which means codes will be generated to replace these details. NHS Digital says this means that no one will be able to directly identify you in the data, without also having access to the key that links each patient to their code. However, NHS Digital does make a distinction between pseudonymisation and complete anonymisation, and so although the data will be de-personalised it will not be completely anonymous (you can read more about the distinction here).
