National Data Opt-out Service

The National Data Opt-out Service enables patients to choose not to share their confidential patient information for research and planning purposes.

See https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out-programme/, https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out/supporting-patients-information-and-resources and https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out/information-for-gp-practices for further details.

Your patients can view or change their national data opt-out choice at any time from www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters.

It is vital that any searches you run within Vision 3 take the patient’s current wishes into account:

  • Every night Vision 3 collects opt-out status data from the Spine on all your patients with an NHS Number, regardless of their current registration status.
Important – There is a 24 hour turn around on this process, so if for example a patient opts out this morning, they would not be removed from the list until tomorrow.

Using the Opt-out Menu

The opt-out filter should be applied when the organisation requesting the data, for example, a research body, confirms that they have approval from the Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG) for the disclosure of confidential patient information. This approval is known as a 'section 251' and enables the common law duty of confidentiality to be lifted, so that confidential patient information can be disclosed without the data controller being in breach. It is only in these cases that opt-outs apply and the opt-out filter should be used.

See https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out/understanding-the-national-data-opt-out#understand-if-the-data-you-use-or-disclose-is-in-scope for further details.
Note - If Read code 9Nu0 Dissent from secondary use of GP patient identifiable data, is recorded in a patient record, they are also removed, unless there is a later 9Nu1 Dissent withdrawn second use of GP patient identifiable data.

To run a search for sharing outside of your practice:

  1. From the Vision 3 front screen, select Reporting – Search and Reports – Adhoc Search and set up your search in the usual way.
  2. Select Opt-out:

  1. Select National Data Opt-out and complete as follows:

    • Name of Report – Enter a valid name for the report
    • Recipient of Report – Enter the recipient for the report
    • Purpose of Report – Why this report is leaving your practice
  1. Select:
    • OK - To accept the details
    • Cancel - To cancel this selection
    • Remove Opt-out - To remove any National Opt-out filters previously applied
  1. If you need to apply the National Opt-out filter, select Apply National Data Opt-out Preference.
Note – You can record that a report is being shared but the Opt-out filter is not being applied, for example, reports for a local Diabetic clinic, in which case you would complete the National Data Opt-out screen, but not select the Apply National Data Opt-out Preference.
  1. The Search is updated with a yellow and red banner:

  1. Select Run.

No records for patients that have selected to opt out, via www.nhs.uk/your-nhs-data-matters or by having Read term 9Nu0 Dissent from secondary use of GP patient identifiable data recorded are included in the search output.

National Data Opt-out in Event Log

If you use any aspect of the National Opt-out filter in a search, the resulting search is recorded in the Event Log.

To see any National Opt-out searches:

  1. From Event Log, in Event Type, select National Data Opt-out:

2. Apply the search filters in the usual way, see Running an Event Log Search for details.

3. Searches run with National Opt-out filters applied display in the right hand screen:

4. Select Close.

See the Event Log Help Centre for more details on using Event Log.
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