ICSs may be breaching patient confidentiality, watchdog warns

The health service’s independent data watchdog has issued a warning to local NHS bodies over concerns confidential patient information is being shared unlawfully with third parties, including for ‘population health’ analysis.

In a letter to integrated care systems (ICSs), National Data Guardian Nicola Byrne and UK Caldicott Guardian Council chair Arjun Dhillon said they had both “been made aware that within some local record sharing programmes, organisations could be processing confidential patient information without ensuring that the processing does not breach confidentiality”.

They added among the four areas of concern health and care staff had raised with them was that confidential patient information may be being transferred from local record sharing programmes to third party hosted secure data environments. Secure Data Environments are data storage and access platforms where organisations can apply to access data for planning and research purposes.

It is not clear what kind of patient data may have been unlawfully shared.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 17 November 2022