Confidentiality Advisory Groups
Health care commissioners need information about the treatment of patients to review and plan current and future health care services. To do this, we need to be able to see information about the health care provided to patients which can include patient level data.
Because we are commissioners and do not directly provide services ourselves, we are not allowed to access 'Personal Confidential Data'. This means that the data and outputs that we can access tell us about the care and treatment an individual received, but never any information that could be used to identify them.
We use this information and other historic information about patients, such as age, gender, diagnoses and patterns of hospital attendance and admission collected by NHS Digital from NHS hospitals and community care services, to plan services and inform future changes.
Some examples of where and why we may use this information include
Intervention: We have used central patient tracking and a standardised approach to evaluating patient outcomes alongside alerts to clinical professionals regarding medicines reviews
Impact: Patient data allowed us to optimising medication regimes to ensure patients received the best available clinical outcomes and reduce hospital admission rates due to Heart Failure complications.
There has been a 98% uptake of this initiative in the Practices across the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin footprint, resulting in a potential £42 per patient per year saving
Our primary care are able to use data to provide proactive care to vulnerable communities, supporting around the patient care planning. Increased promotion of self-care and education to manage long term conditions.
Impact: We have seen a reduction in use of secondary care services e.g. A&E & Emergency admissions as patients are increasingly being managed in primary care.
We use patient activity data alongside demographic information to help identify cohorts of individuals with CVD or potential CVD.
We have used this intelligence to increase the number of blood pressure checks we offer, particularly targeting potential high risk groups.
Impact: Patients are being identified earlier and managed in primary care reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke
We are committed to continually listening and involving the people of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin to help us understand what is important to local people.
If you would like to provide feedback on Confidentiality Advisory Groups, or how we use your anonymised data, please contact us on stw.getinvolved@nhs.net or via our Contact Us page
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The NHS Constitution states, ‘You have the right to request that your confidential information is not used beyond your own care and treatment and to have your objections considered’. There may be occasions when it is not possible to exercise your right to object or ‘Opt Out’, such as when we have an obligation by law or for the purposes of safeguarding adults and children.
The right to object or opt-out includes information not directly collected by the ICB, but collected by organisations that provide NHS services:
Type 1 opt-out
If you do not want personal confidential data that identifies you to be shared outside your GP practice, for purposes beyond your individual care, you can register a ‘Type 1 opt-out’ with your GP practice. This prevents your personal confidential information from being used for anything except your care, except when it is required by law, such as a public health emergency like an outbreak of a pandemic disease.
Patients are only able to register this opt-out at their GP practice. If you would like to opt-out or discuss further, then please talk to your GP or the healthcare professional supporting you.
The national data opt-out
Whenever you use a health or care service, such as attending Accident & Emergency or using Community Care services, important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.
The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and provided to other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:
- Improving the quality and standards of care provided
- Research into the development of new treatments
- Preventing illness and diseases
- Monitoring safety
- Planning services.
This may only take place when there is a clear legal basis to use this information. All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. Confidential patient information about your health and care is only used like this where allowed by law.
Most of the time, anonymised data is used for research and planning so that you cannot be identified in which case your confidential patient information isn’t needed.
You have a choice about whether you want your confidential patient information to be used in this way. If you are happy with this use of information you do not need to do anything. If you do choose to opt-out your confidential patient information will still be used to support your individual care.
To find out more or to register your choice to opt out, please visit Your NHS Data Matters.