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Update: Health Minister delays GPDfPR implementation until September

The Government has today announced to Parliament that the start of GP Data for Research and Planning (GPDfPR) will be delayed until later this year.

The first collection by NHS Digital’s new patient data extraction system will be on 1 September. 

Health Minister Jo Churchill MP said this would allow time for Government to talk to patients, doctors and stakeholders.

You can see the announcement, made as part of today's Parliamentary Health Questions, here.

Data privacy campaigners, including some London GPs, have raised concerns over the fact the pseudonymised data will be made available to third parties by NHS Digital, including academics and commercial organisations. NHS Digital also holds the required information to de-anonymise the data, should it wish to do so.

More details on how patients can opt-out are here. The Government has given patients no specific deadline to submit opt outs by and has said it is for practices to set such deadlines, although opt outs need to be applied to medical records prior to the first extraction on 1 September.

The full BMA press statement is here.

Last updated : 23 Jun 2021

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