Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the criteria are for the assessment of applications to use the data compiled by the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) 2007 dataset is available for secondary research under End User Licence (EUL) in the UK Data Service (UKDS) archive.

The UKDS EUL terms and conditions require that:

- Data can be downloaded from the UK Data Service into the researcher’s local environment;

- Researchers can only use data for statistical research under a set of conditions that limit and control purpose and behaviour. Conditions of use are set out within the current End User and Special User Licences; and

- Disclosure risk is managed by both the licence agreement with the researcher and the disclosure control applied within the design of the dataset.

To further protect respondent confidentiality in line with current NHS Digital policy, the APMS 2014 is available for secondary research applications through the UKDS portal via the NHS Digital Data Access Request Service (DARS) and is subject to further assessment criteria:

- The legal basis must be correct and appropriate; evidence of legal basis must cover all intended data flows and processing;

- The Common Law Duty of Confidentiality must be met;

- Adequate security controls must be in place for each controller(s) and processor(s), covering all processing and storage locations;

- The application must provide a clear explanation of all intended purposes, and all processing activities;

- The data requested must be justified by the purpose, and align with the application;

- The application must evidence in plain English, the benefit to the health and social care system;

- Information Commissioner's Office registration for all controller(s)/processor(s) must cover the proposed data processing;

- The territory of use must be stated;

- Onward sharing of data must be limited to anonymous data, or sub-licenced to allow this;

- Data controller(s) must have an active data sharing framework contract in place;

- European Union or commercially funded applications must ensure adequate controls are in place; and

- Applications must demonstrate compliance with the Data Protection Act, Health and Social Care Act, Care Act, and the European Union General Data Protection Regulations.

NHS Digital is currently looking at technical and governance options for creating a completely anonymised APMS 2014 dataset by the end of the year, which would be subject to the UKDS EUL terms and conditions only.

Other survey datasets uploaded since November 2017 are available in two versions. The standard version can be accessed via the UKDS EUL terms and conditions, in the same way as APMS 2007.

There is also an enhanced version subject to the same process and terms and therefore criteria as the APMS 2014.

Applications for survey datasets uploaded before November 2017 are subject to the UKDS EUL terms and conditions only.

Eleven applications to use the APMS 2014 dataset have been made but one was subsequently withdrawn by the applicant. Four have been granted access. The remaining six are currently being processed within standard Service Level timescales. Applications to previous datasets were made direct to the UKDS archive.