Council Meeting

18th October 2018

Members

Dr Chris Bunch, Sandra Lomax, Carey Bloomer, Dr Fenella Wrigley, Michael Wilbur, Dr Cait Taylor, Professor Martin Crook, Dale Phillipson, Christopher Fincken, David Riley, Mr Adrian Marchbank, Andrew Harvey, Nina Monckton.

Guests

Dawn Monaghan, Sean Kirwan, Dr Matt Noble.

Observer

Ross Thornton.

Apologies

Stephen Hinde, Faouzi Alam, Arjun Dhillon, Allison McCallum, Helen Dyer, Ben Heal, Gill Bennett, Air Commodore Reid, Tim Kendall.

Potential conflicts of interest as training providers were declared by Sandra Lomax and Christopher Fincken.

Chairman’s update 

The Chairman updated council members on a number of recent events that he had attended on behalf of the UKCGC including an Artificial Intelligence event hosted by KPMG with speakers from IQVIA and a Scottish Caldicott Guardian forum meeting.

Vice Chair’s update

The Vice Chair updated council members on further engagement with the Police, and exploring how the UKCGC can support progress with missing persons cases. 

Regional networks

The South West regional network is preparing to host an event at NHS Digital’s Exeter offices on Friday 16 November 2018. The Northern regional network will be hosting an event at NHS Digital’s Leeds offices on 11 January 2019. 

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. Topics included family trees and subject access requests, the role of Caldicott Guardians in integrated care settings and in primary care alliances, deputy Caldicott Guardians, disclosure of sensitive information within a care team, and the use of person identifiable data for audits. 

Caldicott Guardians and supporting staff may contact the Council for advice by email to the Secretariat, via the Council website support page, or by posting to the Digital Health Networks Caldicott Guardians’ online forum.

Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) IG Framework update

Dawn Monaghan, Head of Data Sharing & Privacy (NHS England), Head of Strategic IG (NHS Digital), and Director of the Information Governance Alliance (IGA) attended council to provide an update on the progress of the LHCRE IG Framework. 

Version 0.5 of the LHCRE IG Framework has been shared with stakeholders and critical friends. This covers Journey One and covers "sharing confidential personal information (CPI) between health and social care bodies within a local/regional geographic area for the individual care of patients and service users".

This It is expected that guidance for Journey 2 ("sharing confidential personal information (CPI) between health and social care bodies across geographical boundaries) and Journey 3 (Sharing de-personalised data within local/regional geographic areas and between other health and social care bodies across geographical boundaries for secondary uses) will be released at the end of November and December respectively, with journey 4 (sharing de-personalised data with others research purposes in for health and care) anticipated to be available at the end of January 2019.

All four journeys are expected to be workable and covered by the IG Framework by Spring 2019. 

Consent needs to be given careful consideration to ensure alignment with the Secretary of States view that “the patient should be able to consent to when their data is used”. it will be covered in terms of the GDPR, the common law duty of confidentiality, and the National Data Opt-out).

NHS Code of Confidentiality

Sean Kirwan from NHS England updated Council on progress with a revised the NHS Code of Confidentiality. This will now be covered by two separate documents::

• a summary document for practitioners highlighting the key aspects of confidentiality and data sharing. These will cover the Caldicott principles, with emphasis on principle 7;

• a comprehensive document for information governance professionals, including Caldicott Guardians, and management with more detailed guidance to support complex decision-making. 

Drafts of these documents are anticipated to be available in mid-November 2018. Key aims of the guidance are to promote, enable and support improved information sharing across health and care. 

National Strategic Information Governance Network (SIGN) update

Andrew Harvey, the National SIGN chair presented an update on SIGN, highlighting the work of the 20 regional groups and the Network’s current priorities, including the National Data Opt-out, the Data Security and Protection Toolkit, incident reporting, the IG career path and the GDPR / DPA 18. The SIGN network is keen to develop a strong relationship with the UKCGC as there are many synergies between the two groups.

GP at Hand

Dr Matt Noble, Director of GP at Hand, attended to present GP at Hand’s digital model of general practice being offered in partnership with Babylon. GP at Hand is a GMS GP practice based in Fulham London using the SystmOne GP digital records system. Digital consultations are booked, carried out and recorded through the Babylon app, which is secure and fully compliant with NHS Digital guidance. The aim of GP at Hand is to put the most accessible, high quality, safe and effective NHS GP Service into the hands of any patient who registers with them. 

Currently :

·       GP at Hand has 33,000 registered patients, across London zones 1-3;

·       an average wait time for a GP appointment of <1 hour;

·       around 15% of digital appointments require face to face follow up;

·      there are locations around central London for five face to face consultations.

A discussion ensued on the new digital model of general practice.  

Other business

Council discussed the NDG’s Panel feedback on the domestic abuse paper submitted by Christopher Fincken. David Riley agreed to work with Christopher to incorporate the advice received.