Council Meeting
18 January 2023
Present
Dr Arjun Dhillon (Chair), Dr Chris Bunch (Vice-Chair), Dr Faouzi Alam, Carey Bloomer, Prof Martin Crook, Helen Dyer, Christopher Fincken, Darren Lloyd, Mr Adrian Marchbank, Prof. Roy McClelland, Allison Newell, David Riley
Guests
Ayub Bhayat (Director of Insight and Data Platform, NHSE), Claire Clements (Information Governance lead for the FDP, NHSE)
Observers
Ryan Avison (UKCGC secretariat), Dr Helen Bauckham (UKCGC secretariat), Dr Neil Bhatia, Jonathan Osborn, Claire Rafferty, Capt. Pete Selwood
Apologies
Dr George Fernie, Andrew Harvey, Wg Cdr Christopher Lloyd, Dr Matt Noble
Declarations of interest
Can be found on register of interests. No other new interests were declared.
Notes of previous meeting and matters arising
Council reviewed the notes of the 06 December 2022 Council meeting and accepted them as an accurate record. There were no matters arising.
Action log
The action log was reviewed. Five actions remain open with an update provided by the Chair on progress for each. All other actions were agreed as having been completed or ongoing prior to this meeting.
Chair and Vice Chair’s report
The Chair and Vice Chair updated Council on recent activities and the key meetings they have attended:
Healthcare Conferences UK (HC-UK) run an annual Caldicott Guardian conference, and it has been agreed that in 2023, this conference will be joint-badged with UKCGC. UKCGC will be sponsoring the conference and providing support for the development of the conference programme. The date of the conference is 23 May 2023 (in person in London). As a result of UKCGC sponsorship, there will be 70 tickets available at a discounted rate for Caldicott Guardians, on a first come, first served basis.
There are currently no organised UKCGC workshops in 2023, therefore Council members will be encouraged to suggest topics for future workshops. Helen Dyer is currently looking into Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation for workshops.
UKCGC Secretariat will be in contact with all Council members to organise individual review meetings with the UKCGC Chair. These meetings will take place throughout January and February 2023.
The Chair thanked volunteers coming forward for UKCGC work items (e.g., maintaining Caldicott Guardian manual). Involvement in work items will be discussed with each Council member during the review meetings with UKCGC chair.
The latest UKCGC newsletter is currently being drafted.
UKCGC Breakfast clubs continue to be arranged for 2023 with the support of Council and the Secretariat.
UKCGC chair and vice-chair attended the National Data Guardian’s panel meeting in January. Two new Panel members were introduced and welcomed (Dame Moira Gibbs and Jenny Westaway). Summary Care Records Additional Information (SCR-AI) presented at Panel.
Requests for advice to Council
Council discussed recent requests for advice. The Chair noted that requests were mostly routine questions where the secretariat signposted inquirers to the relevant guidance.
Council has received requests for advice on GP practices being approached by commercial organisations for data processing. Concerns were shared by Council where data is uploaded for direct care and then used for secondary purposes. Council discussed the importance of starting the risk assessment process with a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).
Federated Data Platform (FDP) Update
Claire Clements (Information Governance lead for the FDP) and Ayub Bhayat (Director of Insight and Data Platform, NHSE) presented an update on the Federated Data Platform (FDP) programme. The presentation covered the proposed data sharing approach and advice on how public trust will be developed and maintained throughout the process, including an information governance specific communications strategy. Claire and Ayub emphasised that the FDP programme has been developed with a ‘privacy by design’ approach, and transparency with the public is a priority throughout the process.
An initial Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been performed for the procurement of the FDP solution along with an overarching DPIA for the FDP as a whole. Additional DPIAs for specific purposes will be drafted for each use case of the FDP. The data sharing approach has been designed with consideration of all Caldicott principles, except for principle 5, which will instead be covered by individual organisations specific corporate policies, professional standards and the system data sharing agreement. There exists a monthly review of the DPIA to ensure this is a dynamic document.
Council members raised a number of questions on the FDP programme, including clarity on how the FDP fits into the landscape of other programmes (e.g. secure data environments), how the common law duty of confidentiality would be respected, the type and amount of data being shared on the platform, and who will have access to the data. Council recommended a frequently asked questions section for the programme site, answering these important questions and to provide clarity.
Council thanked Claire and Ayub for the presentation, updates and discussion.
Action: Council to write a letter to the FDP programme, summarising the issues and concerns considered and discussed during the Council meeting. Council is keen to continue engagement with the FDP programme and will invite Claire and Ayub to a future meeting to provide an update on the programme.
Information Sharing with the Police
David Riley provided Council with an update on progress with developing guidance on information sharing with Police. David discussed the background to the work, and highlighted the attempts to develop common guidance between health and care organisations and the police relating to information sharing. The most challenging issue was associated with guidance on information sharing related to proof of life and missing persons enquiries.
There are three main documents relating to this work, in various stages of development:
A short overview document has been drafted for Caldicott Guardians
A confidentiality decision flow chart has already been published by the medical profession
Serious crime, proof of life and missing persons guidance
Council members were overall very supportive of the guidance and documents developed. There were some suggestions to make the documents more concise and move the legal discussions to the appendices.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are engaged with a working group with the Home Office and police officials about data sharing. Council could therefore engage with this group once the documents have been finalised.
David Riley was thanked for his update on the guidance and Council members were encouraged to provide feedback.
Action: Council to provide feedback on the short report titled “Information sharing with the Police – Guidance” and the “Confidentiality Decision Flow Chart”. Council members to submit any comments by 1 February 2023.
Action: David Riley will continue working on the proof of life document and will circulate with Council when completed.
Other Business
No other business.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be held virtually on Thursday 30 March 2023 from 13:00-15:45pm.