Steering group minutes June 2026

Date: 9 June 2026

Time: 2.45pm to 4.15pm

Location: MS Teams

Chair: Dr Nicola Byrne, National Data Guardian

Dr Nicola Byrne welcomed members to the meeting. 

Moira Auchterlonie was welcomed as a new member of the Steering Group. Moira represents The Primary Care Catalyst, a health sector consultancy. 

Apologies were made on behalf of Austin Ambrose from the Practice Managers Association. 

No conflicts of interest were raised by members.

The Public Engagement Design Lead facilitated this agenda item.

Steering Group members were informed that delays had impacted the pre-summer holiday recruitment window. As a result, several amendments had been made to the timeline:

The foundation event and start of the deliberative events had both been moved back to give a longer winder for survey responses.

The 4 cohorts on Individual Patient care would be held in July, whilst the remaining events (on Planning NHS Services, and Health Research) would be moved to September.

These changes had been made to ensure sufficient recruitment time, be considerate to GP and Practice Manager time, whilst still meeting policy and delivery requirements of the programme. 

Feedback from Steering Group members included: 

• a query about the deadline for registration to the workshops. This had been extended to allow more time for GPs and Practice Managers to register and participate in the process

Ipsos UK facilitated this agenda item.

Steering Group members were given a detailed update on the progress of the project. This included more detail on the foundation event, core deliberation workshops and speakers. 

Ipsos also provided an update on how they had acted on previous steering group recommendations, specifically for the foundation event. The changes included reducing the presentation time to make the session more interactive and reducing the steps for registration to encourage attendance. 

Feedback from Steering Group members included: 

• praise for the changes made, as the event would now be more interactive
• a request for clarity around the length of core deliberation events. The first and third workshops would be 2.5 hours, and the second workshop was 3 hours
• a suggestion to include Lived Experience Partners in the panel to bring a patient voice. The design team would explore this suggestion 
• a question around how participants could engage with the panel, as it was pre-recorded. There would be observers from DHSC and NHS England in the rooms to answer any questions participants might have However, due to logistical constraints the panel would have to be pre-recorded
• a note that the key aim for the engagement should be to allow participants to discuss all the topics and reflect on the information provided. This aim should be reflected in all materials

Kaleidoscope Health and Care facilitated this agenda item. 

Steering Group members were updated that recruitment had been launched and given live numbers of those that had signed up so far. Recruitment was focused on London, Manchester and Nottingham as those were the first groups for core deliberation.

Steering Group members were asked to help share the engagement opportunity with their networks and contacts to support recruitment process. The materials had been sent to members the previous week.

Feedback from Steering Group members included:

• queries regarding wording and technicalities within the survey
• a question around the desired split of participants that were GPs or Practice Managers. There was no specific target, and the input of Steering Group members was sought, however it was expected that GPs would be the majority of participants
• a suggestion that more early-career GPs should be sought to participant in the engagement, and several networks that could help facilitate this
• a question about to what extent the programme wanted the views of GPs or Practice Managers specifically, vs the views of primary care staff generally. Multiple roles were sought for the engagement, as practices can be organised differently, with different partners (clinical or non-clinical) involved in discussions about data. However, it was clarified that engagement would be restricted to GPs and Practice Managers and would not expand to include any primary care staff member

Ipsos UK facilitated this agenda item. 

Steering Group members were talked through the key aspects of the revised Individual Patient Care discussion guide following a round of feedback. Members were talked through the aims and flow for each section of the workshops, including the length of each session, resources to be utilised and how facilitators would encourage participation. 

Feedback from Steering Group members included:

• a query on how the engagement would deal with live topics, such as the NHS Reform Bill that was going through parliament
• a note that it could be difficult for participants to engage full on topics such as the Single Patient Record (SPR), as there wasn’t much clarity about how that could look and function
• a suggestion that displaying a prototype of the SPR could be useful for participants
• a note that for the SPR to be developed successfully, it was key to know so clinicians expect to use it, this should be drawn out in the engagement
• a suggestion that the engagement was very future thinking, and it might be useful for it to cover less, as attitudes to data use may change in the next few years
• an observation that the content of the guides should be reviewed to ensure there wasn’t any crossover or confusion between sections
• encouragement that the engagement should be as transparent as possible, ensuring suggestions for change were grounded in what was technically feasible

No other business was raised by members.

The chair thanked members for their contributions and closed the meeting.