GP Records to be Turned on Again
This last week there has been an interesting battle going on in primary care land. Many of you will know that full prospective access to GP records was about to be turned on (again). This was NHS England instructing the IT systems suppliers to add this feature. However.. the BMA and others pointed out that the GP practices are the data controller and the system suppliers are only controllers - so in theory they couldn’t do this without the explicit permission of the practices..
So many letters went in from practice to say DON’T do this…- as many practices felt they were not ready for this access (I should point out - I’m 95% in favour of this access but I agree it could be a lot of work for practices at a time when they don’t need it).
It appears that the response has been if you sent in a letter - we will give you an extra 30 days but we are being forced to turn it on by NHS England.
Now.. NHS E could have make it a contractual requirement for practices to do this.. and probably will but they haven’t - they have just forced the IT system suppliers to do this? OK maybe but what if the practices say they aren’t ready and the access is turned on - what happens and who is responsible if a third party IG breach occurs?
You may understand this more than me.. in which case please explain. Have I just lost my status as the data controller? Who gets sued if something goes wrong and I said I’m not ready?