Council Meeting

14th October 2020

Present 

Dr Chris Bunch, Sandra Lomax, Carey Bloomer, Prof. Martin Crook, Christopher Fincken, Mr Adrian Marchbank, Prof. Alison McCallum, Dr Alison Metcalfe (NHS BSA), David Riley, Col Robert Russell (MoD), Jenny Spiers (SIGN), Dr Cait Taylor.

Guests 

Martin Orton (Professional Record Standards Body)
Alan Keen, Marcus Maher and Michael Presence (Organisation Data Service, NHS Digital).

Observers

Ross Thornton and Jenny Westaway (Office of the National Data Guardian)

Apologies

Prof. Paul Dargan, Dr Arjun Dhillon, Dr Marjorie Gillespie, Andrew Harvey (SIGN), Dr Matt Noble, Alison Newell (NHS BSA), Air Cdr. Richard Withnall (MoD).

Declarations

Conflicts of interest from Christopher Fincken and Sandra Lomax (as training providers) were noted.

Action log

There are currently four open actions; two actions have been completed since the last meeting.

Chairman’s update 

The Chairman updated council members on his recent activities and the meetings he has attended including the National SIGN meeting, the National Data Guardian’s Panel, an NHSX Data Strategy briefing, and the regular SIGN/NHSx meetings. He has also been involved in discussions with NHSx and the Department for Health and Social Care regarding the appointment of a Caldicott Guardian for the newly established NHS Test and Trace organisation. Dr Bunch has also been invited to represent the UKCGC on the the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB).

Vice-Chair’s update

The Vice Chair provided an update on planning underway for the Caldicott Guardian virtual workshops, including an upcoming session planned in conjunction with the South West and London regional networks. The Vice Chair has continued her active engagement with the Police and has also had discussions recently with the colleagues in Northern Ireland to explore how the UKCGC can better support Caldicott/Personal Data Guardians in the devolved nations.

UKCGC Member Updates 

NHSx Social Care IG group: David Riley reported on the first meeting of the “Information Governance Social Care Group”. The meeting primarily focused on matters regarding the establishment of the Group, including the Terms of Reference (ToR), its Constitution, key issues to address, and its membership.

NHSx Red Tape challenge: Mr Adrian Marchbank reported on a meeting regarding this project which he had attended with the National Data Guardian (NDG). Both supported the aim of making it easier and simpler for staff to share data appropriately and to understand the information governance involved, but also wanted to seek clarification on a number of points such as the ability of organisations to determine independently the content of advice and guidance for their members/professionals, and what should happen when there is genuine disagreement between the parties involved.

Requests for advice

The Council discussed recent requests for advice that have been received by the UKCGC mailbox or raised on the Digital Health Caldicott Guardian forum. These included a request from a private clinic regarding a patient who has requested that he remain anonymous whilst attending the clinic.

Full details of requests for advice can be provided to Caldicott Guardians on request, and may also feature as discussion topics on the Digital Health Network's Caldicott Guardian forum.

The Organisation Data Service (ODS) and the Caldicott Guardian Register

Alan Keen and colleagues from the ODS team at NHS Digital gave a presentation on a project underway to update the Caldicott Guardian Register which they host for NHS Digital. 

The project aims to replace the current manual registration process—which involves the completion, wet-signing and submission of documents with an automated web front end. The intention is to make the process more user friendly and efficient whilst reducing the resource burden and costs of maintaining the register. 

A discussion ensued on how the UKCGC can best support this work, and how the project could support the UKCGC. The register currently has ~5600 entries and the quality of its data has not been good. The Data Security Protection Toolkit (DSPT) requires details of submitting organisations’ Caldicott Guardians and has revealed that there are around 20,000 Caldicott Guardians in the field. The difference is mainly that submission to the register has traditionally only been required for certain NHS organisations, whilst submission to the DSPT is required for any organisation handling NHS patient data.

Council members present supported the continuation of the register, that it should become the ‘single version of truth, regarding current practising Caldicott Guardians and that it should consider the DSPT a potential reliable source of information.

The Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB)

Martin Orton presented a background to the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) and the work that it is undertaking in collaboration with NHSx and NHS Digital to ensure there is meaningful engagement of all ‘users’ in the co-production of standards and their adoption.

Members recognised the importance of the adoption of standards across health and care and expressed support for the work that the PRSB is progressing to develop standards for health and care records, promoting their adoption and supporting implementation.

Other business

Shortly before the meeting Professor Alison McCallum informed the secretariat that she had been appointed to a new role at the Centre for Population Health Science at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh. Members congratulated Alison on her new role and thanked her for all her hard work and contributions to the UKCGC in recent years.

The next meeting will be held virtually on 10th December 2020.