The General Practice Data for Planning and Research data collection will help the NHS to improve health and care services for everyone.
For example, patient data can help the NHS to:
• Monitor the long-term safety and effectiveness of care.
• Plan how to deliver better health and care services.
• Prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
• Identify new treatments and medicines through health research.
NHS Digital will not collect patients’ names or addresses or any other data that could directly identify patients (such as NHS Number, date of birth, full postcode). The data will be pseudonymised i.e., it will be replaced with unique codes which are produced by de-identification software before the data is shared with NHS Digital.
Can patients opt out?
Yes. As a patient you may not want this and may want to ‘opt out’ of this data collection completely. You can opt out of data being used for research and planning purposes. This can be done through the National Data Opt Out Service: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out
