General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR)

You may have read about a “data grab” of medical records. This refers to a new scheme intended to support medical research. The government have announced this will be on hold until September while they review the scheme.

Researchers can already analyse anonymous medical data, for example the age or geographic distribution of people with a particular disease, or how many people with one illness also have another condition, or how prescribing varies with deprivation. We support the principle that this plays an important role in medical research.

However the medical profession have had concerns about how the new scheme was being introduced, the aim was worthy but the proposals would bypass important safeguards.

We’ll keep you updated when the updated scheme is announced.

You can read more about the purpose of the new scheme at following link. Please be aware that the details might change to improve safeguards. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-collections/general-practice-data-for-planning-and-research

We recommend waiting for the scheme to be updated before considering opting out because the research this supports will be very valuable to medical research if done properly. If you do want to opt out please contact us to ask for a Type 1 opt out.