Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 6 March (HL5675), which dataset(s) was the source of the SNOMED CT codes and dates shared; and why unprotected NHS numbers and unprotected dates of birth were included.

Cohorting as a Service uses SNOMED CT Codes from general practitioner (GP) practice extracts, with data being collected using the General Practice Extraction service. This collection is supported by the British Medical Association, Royal College of General Practitioners and National Data Guardian, and collects a specific set of patient data from GP practices in England on a fortnightly basis.

The data includes personally identifiable information such as National Health Service number and date of birth because the information is required for delivering direct care. The NHS England vaccination programme uses the information to identify and contact patients who fall within clinically ‘at-risk’ groups within an age group.

The Secretary of State or NHS England issue Directions for information collection, then approval for collection is obtained, confirming that the Information Standard, Collection or Extraction has been through assessment and is demonstrated to meet the quality assurance criteria set by the Data Alliance Partnership Board.