January 2020 newsletter

We are pausing these meetings for 6 months to trial a new process. 

Your IG related issues will now be captured via the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Steering Group and, where appropriate, escalated to the National Information Governance Board that NHS Digital attends along with NHS England & Improvement and NHS X. 
This will provide higher level scrutiny and visibility of relevant use cases – a change that should benefit all.

We will monitor the effectiveness of this new escalation route with a view to potentially reinstating the IG Steering Group if necessary.  Your patience and continued support is appreciated as we work it through. 

The dates for the next CCG Steering Group meetings are 18 Feb (10.30-12.30), 24 March (10.30-12.30) and 21 April (10.30-12.30). Please contact [email protected] to get involved. 

The Provider Data Quality Assurance Framework is now available.

Published as two separate but linked documents, part 1 is aimed at provider organisations who starting out in terms of data quality assurance. 

Part 2 is for those looking to build upon their existing data quality assurance processes and practices.  

Each part of the framework covers five main themes: Oversight, Process, People, Systems and Measures. Each section describes an objective, the associated benefits and current best practice. 

Several sections include a case study and links to supporting resources. These will be added to a collaboration site that we will launch in due course.  

Each part of the framework also includes an Assurance Checklist to assist provider organisations assess where they are in terms of data quality assurance, and what gaps there might be that the framework can help fill.  
An electronic version of the checklists is in development and will be available alongside the framework and the collaboration site on the Data Quality page. 

We will then be asking provider organisations to complete and submit the checklist to provide insight into current data quality assurance across providers.

The framework has been developed to meet the requirements of Assertion 1.7 of the Data Security & Protection tool and support the published technical guidance.  The intention is that by implementing the framework a provider organisation will have the evidence needed to support their assessed level against Assertion 1.7.

As a commissioner we would like to ask for your support in rolling out the framework across the provider landscape.  

Initially this would be to encourage your providers to work through the framework, complete the Assurance Checklist, share the results and identify opportunities to improve their existing data quality assurance processes and practices.  

The second ask would be that the identified improvements are added to the provider’s Data Quality Improvement Plan (DQIP) for 2020/21 and progress tracked alongside that of the Data Quality Maturity Index (DQMI) as recommended in Service Condition 28 of the contract.

Access the framework documents.

Any questions about the above or the work of the Corporate Data Quality Assurance Team in general then please contact us at [email protected].

All health and adult care organisations in England providing publicly funded or co-ordinated care must comply with the national data opt-out policy by March 2020. 

The recently published Primary Care (GP) Digital Services Operating Model 2019-21 sets out the requirement for GP practices to be compliant with national data opt-out policy by March 2020 and the role of CCGs to provide advice to support their GP practices. 

There’s a wide range of guidance and resources available to help you understand more about the national data opt-out, including the Compliance Implementation Guide and a simple overview of the policy called Understanding the national data opt-out.

Between June and December 2020, the Data Services for Commissioners team will hold several CCG workshops at various locations around the country covering data developments within NHS Digital, development with the Data Access Request Service (DARS 0.2) and the future strategy for commissioning.  

Email [email protected] if you are interested in attending. We will contact you nearer to the time of these events.