NHS' new data-sharing plan pushed back amid outcry over privacy breach

PLANS to allow a new NHS system to extract patient data from their GP records have now been pushed back by two months amid concerns over privacy breaches.

Officially known as General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR), the new plan has been pushed back from July 1 to September 1 to give the NHS more time to address the concerns following an outcry by doctors as well as patients' associations.

Disclosing the delay in the House of Commons on Tuesday (8), health minister Jo Churchill insisted that ministers will use the extra time to "talk to doctors, patients and charities to strengthen the plan... and ensure data is accessed securely”.

Patient groups, medical organisations, Labour and the information Commissioner all welcomed news of the delay.

Labour's shadow health minister Alex Norris said the "current plans to take data from GPs, assemble it in one place and sell it to unknown commercial interests for purposes unknown has no legitimacy”.

He also criticised the government for a lack of "public engagement" and said the plans had been "snuck out under the cover of darkness".

Under the GPDPR proposal, information about the physical, mental and sexual health of the patients will be extracted from GP surgeries into a central database, including diagnoses, symptoms, test results, medications, allergies, immunisations and referrals, as well as data on sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation. It is expected to have everything for the past 10 years and will be updated constantly as more data is added to GP records.

All collected data will be protected or pseudonymised before it leaves the GP "to ensure patients cannot be directly identified”, Simon Bolton, head of NHS Digital, claimed earlier.

Individual patients can opt-out from the scheme and were given time until June 23 to exercise their right. Now they have time until September 1 if they want to stop past data being transferred to the new system.

Representational image by iStock

The Royal College of General Practitioners previously wrote to NHS Digital saying though it backed the idea of data sharing, it is “critical that this is transparent and that patients have confidence and trust in how the NHS and other bodies might use their information”, The Guardian reported.

Patient groups, including the Patients' Association and Healthwatch England, urged ministers and the NHS to undertake “a proper nationwide campaign” over the next few weeks so that patients can make an informed choice about whether or not to participate.

Meanwhile, the NHS said the new database will only be accessible to organisations "which will legitimately use the data for healthcare planning and research purposes, and they will only get the specific data that is required”.

It added that the information will not be used for insurance or marketing purposes, promoting or selling products or services, market research and advertising and also that any requests for data will be "scrutinised by NHS Digital against stringent criteria”.