Council Meeting
19th June 2019
Present
Dr Chris Bunch (Chairman), Sandra Lomax (Vice-chair), Gill Bennett, Prof. Alison McCallum, Prof. Martin Crook, Helen Dyer, Christopher Fincken, Mr Adrian Marchbank, Nina Monckton, Air Commodore Withnall, Dr Fenella Wrigley.
Guests
John Hodson (NHSD), Rachel Merrett (NHSX).
Observers
Ross Thornton (NDGO), Rajoo Veeren (NDGO).
Conflicts of interest from Sandra Lomax and Christopher Fincken (as training providers) were noted.
Apologies
Carey Bloomer,, Dr Faouzi Alam, Dr Arjun Dhillon, Andrew Harvey, Tim Kendall, Dawn Monaghan, Dt Matt Noble, David Riley, Dr Cait Taylor, Gill Weatherill.
Chairman’s update
The Chairman updated council members on his recent activities including an Information Governance meeting for Trusts using population health features of Cerner EPR system, attendance at the National Data Guardians Panel where the Data Security Protection Toolkit and Cyber Security was discussed, and participation in NHSE LHCRE IG Steering & Assurance Groups.
Vice Chair update
The Vice Chair updated council members regarding recent discussions with teachers and some of the challenges being faced with safeguarding issues in education.
Regional Networks
The North network provided an update to council members on the planning for the UKCGC North network workshop planned for 5 July 2019.
The South West network provided details of their recent meeting on 24 April 2019 (the minutes have been uploaded to the UKCGC website).
Data Security Protection Toolkit
John Hodson Senior Information Assurance from NHS Digital attended Council to update members with the progress of the Data Security Protection Toolkit post the first set of annual submissions.
Cyber Security Update
Dr Bunch provided an update session on the importance of cyber security discussing and detailing emerging trends and common themes for the NHS. This was followed by some informative videos highlighting that people are one of the key vulnerabilities for any organisation trying to maintain or implement cyber security policies / technologies.
UKCGC Annual Report and future priorities
The Chairman introduced the draft UKCGC report for 2018/19 and invited Council members to provide feedback and consider the priorities for the UKCGC moving into 2019/20. A key priority should be to establish a more comprehensive and reliable register of Caldicott Guardians. The current NHS Digital register covers less than 5000 Caldicott Guardians and has many historical inaccuracies. It is hoped that the new Data Security and Protection Toolkit, which captures Caldicott Guardian details, will prove a more reliable source in future. Promoting standards for Caldicott Guardians and decision making through discussions with professional bodies such as the Royal Colleges, GMC, NMC as PSB were suggested.
Priorities will be considered further at the August and October meetings.
Terminology
Rachel Merrett, Head of stakeholder engagement at NHSX, led discussions on how NHS England and NHSX could help consider the words used by information governance (IG) professionals when describing the identifiability of data.
Rachel presented the proposed NHSX approach to simplifying terminology to improve clarity and consistency, and avoid duplication. The ensuing discussion welcomed the efforts but highlighted the complexity of the task and cautioned against over-simplification.
Requests for Advice
The Council discussed recent requests for advice that have been received by the UKCGC mailbox and website, or raised on the Digital Health Caldicott Guardian forum. These requests included topics such as the publication of small numbers in disease registers, subject access requests for CCTV footage and sending information outside the European Union.
Full details of requests for advice can be provided upon and are also available to view as discussion topics on the digital health Caldicott Guardian forum.
Any other business
Christopher Fincken provided an update on the recent inter collegiate domestic abuse meeting he attended and raised a query regarding uncorroborated / alleged third party information potentially being recorded in a medical record
Sandra Lomax vice chair of the UKCCG raised the issue of Caldicott Guardian Training refresher timings and validation of ongoing training / development.