The NHS on the Isle of Wight want to share your GP medical records with other medical service on the Island.
In the article published on VB in the middle of September, we outlined the NHS/GP’s thinking, that there was an option to Opt Out before 31st October and we posed some questions.
Within a week, the NHS has answers back to us – and many thanks to those at St Mary’s Hospital for answering the questions below – sadly we hadn’t been able to put them out until today.
Many of the comments on the original story were positive on the idea of record sharing between the hospital and GPs. A few VB readers raised further questions, those of which that weren’t answered below, we asked to the NHS today, along with a few that arise from what’s below.
When we hear back from the NHS we’ll get those answers to you much quicker, as you’ll need to make your decision to opt out, if you choose to, by the end of this month.
Hope you find this information helpful.
- Q1. What are the mechanics of medical staff getting access to a patients records? eg how many passwords have to be entered, etc. What’s the process?
- A1. Medical staff will need to apply to the Vision 360 Governance Committee where specific criteria will need to be met in order to obtain access. Access is password controlled and audited regularly by the Governance Committee which includes patient representatives.
- Q2. Is INPS (the supplier) currently the only provider of GP systems on the Island?
- A2. Yes
- Q3. Will other applications, from other companies apart from INPS, have access to patients records? If so, which ones and what do they do?
- A3. There are two systems which are part of our roll out which are subject to stringent governance arrangements. The Adastra system is used by the ‘Out of Hours’ Doctors service and the Beacon Health Centre at St. Mary’s. Prowellness is to be used by the Diabetes Centre.
- Q4. Who/what are the “Community health services” able to see the data?
- A4. Community health services refers to All health professionals based in the community, for example district nurses.
- Q5. Please list the roles of the people will be able to access the data.
- A5. All clinical and medical staff who see patients, have applied and been granted access via a password, will be able to access data. For example this would include doctors and nurses in the Beacon Health Centre, the Emergency Department, the Diabetes Centre. It would exclude administration staff, ward based nurses, etc.
- Q6. How much has the IW NHS chosen to share?
- A6. It is not the whole health record that is being shared just a summary which includes medications, allergies and significant medical events.
- Q7. Where will the data be physically located?
- A7. In a secure data centre (CFH level 4) at Heathrow. It has a mirrored server in London Docklands. This is common established practice.
- Q8. Can you provide a full list of the situations of when records would be accessed without the patients permission – the example given in the leaflet is if the patient is unconscious.
- A8. Where a patient is unavailable/incapable of giving consent. Examples are drunk/drugged, absent parent/guardian, unconscious, confused. The clinician or medical staff would access the record in these cases if there were issues that needed to be resolved to ensure that the care provided was safe – and where it was considered in the best interests of the patient to do so.
- Q9. You mentioned that some medical service are provided off-Island. Will these services have access to the Vision 360 system?
- A9. No
- Q10. About the security of records, the leaflet says, “if there are concerns about inappropriate use these will be rigorously investigated.”
- A10. Vision 360 Governance Committee will regularly audit the use of the system. It will be possible to tie up access with booked appointments or other validated sources and investigations carried out if any anomalies appear.
- Q11. Where and when will these investigations be published?
- A11. Investigations will be taken to the Committee and will be available under the usual FOI request process. NHS Isle of Wight publishes information about serious data breaches or losses in its annual report.
Image: Jeffrey Beall under CC BY-SA 2.0
