Following the changes to the commissioning landscape in April, with the disbanding of PCTs and the creation of CCGs, there has been an ongoing semi-public discussion regarding the use of Personal, Confidential Data (PCD) by commissioners.
To recap, for those who haven’t been following the story: It seems there is no basis in law for CCGs – nor the CSUs supporting them, nor indeed NHS England – to process identifiable patient data for commissioning purposes. The only body which can legally do so is the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). So to enable record linking and data management activities in support of commissioning to continue, outposts of the HSCIC have been defined, providing “Data Services for Commissioning.” They are charged with delivering linked, pseudonymised data for commissioning purposes to CSUs and CCGs. Read More…