Council Meeting
30 March 2023
Present
Dr Arjun Dhillon (Chair), Dr Chris Bunch (Vice-Chair), Dr Faouzi Alam, Carey Bloomer, Prof Martin Crook, Helen Dyer, Dr George Fernie, Christopher Fincken, Andrew Harvey, Mr Adrian Marchbank, Allison Newell, Dr Matt Noble, David Riley, Brigadier Duncan Wilson
Guests
No external guests
Observers
Dr Neil Bhatia, Colin Harper, Dr Alastair Moore, Dr Erum Nomani, Claire Rafferty, Dr Farrukh Shah, Dr Gabrielle Tamura-Rose, Debbie Topping, Alex Wilson
Secretariat
Ryan Avison, Dr Helen Bauckham
Apologies
Darren Lloyd
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 18 January 2023 Council meeting and accepted them as an accurate record. There were no matters arising.
Action log
The UKCGC Chair and Council members reviewed the action log. 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:
Dr George Fernie has been appointed as the new UKCGC vice-chair and will begin this position on 1 April 2023. Council welcomed George and thanked Dr Chris Bunch for his time as UKCGC vice-chair.
This year, UKCGC are sponsoring the Healthcare Conferences UK’s annual national Caldicott Guardian conference, which is taking place in London (or online) on 23 May. As part of this, UKCGC have helped to shape an interesting and varied agenda. The event brings together Caldicott Guardians to understand current issues, the national context, and debate and discuss issues they face in practice.
The UKCGC Bulletin was distributed on 23 March 2023. This will also become available on the UKCGC website.
UKCGC Breakfast clubs continue to be arranged for 2023 with the support of Council and the Secretariat. The next breakfast club dates are 26 April 2023 and 31 May 2023, they take place from 8:00-9:00.
The NDG is running a project to explore if communication materials can be designed to ensure people have ‘no surprises’ about how their confidential patient information is used for secondary purposes beyond direct care. The NDG has invited a Council member to represent UKCGC on the project oversight group.
Dr Chris Bunch provided a short update on the UKCGC working group looking at training and professional standards for Caldicott Guardians. The working group last met on 4 April 2023.
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.
Information sharing with the police guidance
David Riley provided an update on progress with developing the Information Sharing with the Police Guidance.
There are three main documents relating to this work, in various stages of development:
1. A short overview document has been drafted for Caldicott Guardians.
2. A confidentiality decision flow chart has been developed and published by the General Medical Council (GMC). Council members have reviewed this document.
3. The serious crime, proof of life and missing persons guidance is currently being developed.
David considered and implemented the feedback received from Council members on the short overview guidance. There were no edits to the GMC decision flow chart.
The serious crime, proof of life and missing persons guidance requires further input and discussion from Council members. David reported to Council that he is reviewing all pan-London Information Sharing Agreements (ISA) established through the IG group for London (17 ISAs in total). Many of the ISAs relate to missing persons and proof of life. All ISAs set out a clear statement on Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, Data Protection and Caldicott Principles, and demonstrate a clear legal basis.
David is additionally reviewing the Herbert Protocol, which is a guidance document frequently used by the Police relating to dementia and missing persons. The Herbert Protocol will be used to influence the development of the serious crime, proof of life and missing persons guidance.
Action: David Riley will complete the drafts of the short overview document and serious crime, proof of life and missing persons guidance. Once completed, David will share internally with the working group for Police guidance, and then with Council for review.
Social care engagement
David Riley presented this second item, to initiate discussions and identify how Council can engage more effectively with Social Care. David provided a brief report on the Social Care Information Governance (IG) group that he attends, followed by his personal perspective of working with Local Authority Social Services for 42+ years and engaging regionally and nationally with the health sector on behalf of social care for 20+ years.
The Social Care IG Group was formed by NHSX to consider IG issues from the perspective of social care organisations to feed into wider health and social care IG developments to ensure that social care would be involved from the start of any developments. The responsibility of the Social Care IG group has now transferred to NHS England.
Over the years there have been many initiatives to improve collaboration between health and social care. However, David discussed two key issues that undermine the potential for long term success with this collaboration:
1. Social Care representatives are frequently invited to join existing health initiatives, thus making it difficult to adapt to the social care requirements.
2. The demands on senior Social Care representatives (e.g., Directors of Adult Social Care) and the volume of small social care providers makes it difficult to get consistent members on forums that are representative of the vast social care area.
David challenged Council members to understand the importance of timely engagement with Social Care colleagues and consider a complete-system approach rather than retrofitting Social Care.
Council agreed with David that early involvement of Social Care and Local Authorities is critical for moving UKCGC forward. Council discussed how to engage with Social Care and provide support to Social Care colleagues, identifying the following suggestions:
Direct engagement with national bodies
Engaging with current networks
Offering Social Care specific workshops and masterclasses
Action: Council members to consider how to engage with Social Care providers and offer more support. To consider the approaches discussed (direct engagement with national bodies, engaging with our current networks and running Social Care specific workshops)
Scotland perspective for Caldicott Guardians
Dr George Fernie presented at UKCGC to provide a Scottish perspective for Caldicott Guardians. George provided a brief overview of his career and current role, followed by a presentation on the similarities and differences between legislation and initiatives in Scotland compared to England.
George discussed that whilst there is considerable overlap between Scotland and England and the existence of UK-wide legislation, there is also key Scottish legislation pertinent to this field (e.g., Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991).
George provided an overview on the recently published data strategy for Health and Social Care: “Greater access, better insight and improved outcomes: a strategy for data-driven care in the digital age.” The Scottish Government released this first dedicated data strategy for Health and Social care in Scotland in February 2023.
George also discussed the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel (PBPP) for Health and Social Care in Scotland. The PBPP provides a single, consistent, open, and transparent scrutiny process for health data to be used for different purposes, including research. PBPP combines a patient privacy panel and an information governance panel.
Council thanked George for his presentation and valuable insights to the Scottish perspective for Caldicott Guardians.
Other business
No other business.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday 16 May 2023 from 13:00-16:30.