[MI] Care Information Choices, England - June 2018

A type 1 opt-out indicates a patient does not want their confidential patient information to be shared outside their GP practice for purposes beyond their individual care.

A type 2 opt-out indicated a patient did not want their confidential patient information to be shared outside of NHS Digital for purposes beyond their individual care.

From 25 May 2018 the type 2 opt-out has been replaced by the national data opt-out.

Data Quality

This management information publication reports on patient opt-out information that has been received from GP practices, as of June 2018.

There has been a larger than usual increase in patients with registered type 2 opt-outs in this quarter. This is due to a reporting issue with a GP system supplier.

Patients who have registered a type 2 opt-out in TPP practices (SystmOne) have not had those opt outs subsequently sent to NHS Digital, due to a coding error by TPP. This error has affected up to around 150,000 patients, about 10% of the total number of opt-outs.

Patients are affected if they registered a type 2 opt-out in a GP practice using SystmOne, after 31 March 2015.

These patients are now included in these results. In previous months they have not been included.                                                                                                                                                                            
For more information on this please see NHS Digital’s statement about an error with recording type 2 objections and a message from TPP. 

National Data Opt-out

The national data opt-out was introduced on 25 May 2018, and replaces the type 2 opt-out. It indicates that a patient does not want their  confidential patient information to be used for research and planning across the health and care system in England. Type 2 opt-outs recorded on or before 11 October 2018 have automatically been converted to national data opt-outs.

Information on numbers of national data opt-outs set can be found here.

Now that the national data opt-out has been introduced, this is the last release of type 2 opt-out management information in this form. Subsequent releases of management information will be based on the number of national data opt-outs in place, combining type 2 information previously sourced from GP systems with preferences expressed via the national data opt-out service, to give a single de-duplicated figure. These releases will initially be monthly and will be developed in line with user need.

Type 1 and Type 2 Opt-outs

A type 1 opt-out indicates a patient does not want their confidential patient information  being shared outside of their GP practice for purposes beyond their individual care.

A type 2 opt-out indicated a patient did not want their confidential patient information from being shared outside of NHS Digital for purposes beyond their individual care. Read a more detailed description of opt-outs.

Type 1 and type 2 opts-outs are presented at GP practice level.

Type 1 opt-outs are reported as instances (i.e. number of times the opt-out code occurs within GP records, which may include the same patient recorded at more than one practice) as there is no way to de-duplicate this information. Levels of type 1 opt-outs are therefore likely to be higher than levels of type 2 opt-outs, which are de-duplicated.