NHS Digital will use the uploaded information for purposes beyond direct medical care, so-called “secondary uses”, such as commissioning, planning, population health management, and research.
The data held in the GP medical records of patients is used every day to support health and care planning and research in England, helping to find better treatments and improve patient outcomes for everyone. NHS Digital has developed a new way to collect this data, called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research data collection.
NHS Digital has engaged with the British Medical Association (BMA), Royal College of GPs (RCGP) and the National Data Guardian (NDG) to ensure relevant safeguards are in place for patients and GP practices.
NHS Digital will not collect patients’ names or addresses. Any other data that could directly identify patients (such as NHS Number, date of birth, full postcode) is replaced with unique codes which are produced by de-identification software before the data is shared with NHS Digital (pseudonymisation).
By law, we are required to inform our patients of such processing and of their right to opt-out of this extraction, should they wish to. The opt-out is the standard one used to prohibit use of your GP records for secondary purposes, the “Type 1 opt-out”. If you have already expressed such an opt-out (e.g. you previously opted out of care.data) then it remains in force and will prohibit this extraction.
This collection will start on 1 July 2021 so if you do not want your data to be shared with NHS Digital please register your Type 1 Opt-out.
Further information about the service can be found
This collection will start on 1 July 2021 so if you do not want your data to be shared with NHS Digital please register your Type 1 Opt-out with your GP practice by 23 June 2021 by completing and returning the form.
