Medical Records: Data Protection

(asked on 4th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the collection of general practice data by NHS Digital and the opt-out date of 23 June 2021, which patient details are planned to be shared with third parties.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 15th June 2021

Only the information that is required to meet a legally permitted use will be accessed. The data will only be used for health and care planning and research purposes by organisations that have a legal basis and legitimate need to use the data. NHS Digital publishes the details of the data shared on their data release register. All requests to access general practitioner (GP) data are scrutinised by NHS Digital against stringent criteria, then two independent panels which include GP representatives.

Any National Health Service organisation, such as a clinical commissioning group, or a national arm’s length body or research organisation can request access to the data. The data collected from GPs does not include the names and addresses of individuals or their contact numbers and is pseudonymised at source to further protect the identity of patients. The implementation date of this data collection will now be 1 September 2021.

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