Whenever you use health or care services important information about you is collected in a patient record for that service. Collecting this information helps to ensure you get the best possible care and treatment.
The information collected about you when you use these services can also be used and shared with other organisations for purposes beyond your individual care, for instance to help with:
- improving the quality and standards of care provided
- research into the development of new treatments
- preventing illness and disease
- monitoring safety
- planning services
All these uses help to provide better health and care for you, your family and future generations. However, the National data opt-out (NDOO) was introduced on 25 May 2018 and allows patients to opt out of their confidential information being used beyond their direct care for certain research and planning purposes. All NHS organisations in England must comply with the NDOO from 31 March 2022. Essentially this means that South West London ICB must always check whether any purpose for which it uses or shares patients’ personal information is one to which the NDOO applies. Where it is, the ICBs will need to identify those patients that have opted out and exclude their information from use.
It should be noted that the NDOO does not apply in all circumstances of data sharing, e.g. where patients have explicitly consented to share their data, nor to aggregated or anonymised data but instead is intended to cover the use of confidential data without consent.
For the majority of the ICB’s work, we do not need to use personal/confidential data. The applicability of the NDOO is therefore limited for the data processing carried out by the ICB. Our privacy notice give more details on the type of data that ICB does use along with our legal basis for doing so.
Additionally, there is a type 1 opt-out that prevents information being shared outside of a GP practice for purposes other than direct care. Some patients will have a type 1 opt-out registered with their GP practice, which indicates they do not want their confidential patient information leaving the practice for research and planning purposes. These existing type 1 opt-outs will continue to be respected until the Department of Health and Social Care conducts a consultation with the National Data Guardian on their removal.
Further information on the types of data opt out
In order to ensure we maintain compliance with the NDOO, NHS South West London ICB will continually monitor its uses of confidential patient data to ensure that any to which the NDOO is likely to apply are identified as quickly as possible. This is done via the ICB’s work on information asset review.
Find out more or register your choice to opt out at nhs.uk. On this web page you will also:
- See what is meant by confidential patient information
- Find examples of when confidential patient information is used for individual care and examples of when it is used for purposes beyond individual care
- Find out more about the benefits of sharing data
- Understand more about who uses the data
- Find out how your data is protected
- Be able to access the system to view, set or change your opt-out setting
- Find the contact telephone number if you want to know any more or to set/change your opt-out by phone
- See the situations where the opt-out will not apply