/ Children and Families
Information Governance Team
Tel: 0161 234 3859
P.O.Box 532 Town Hall
Manchester M60 2LA
20 May 2016
Dear Dr Bhatia
Reference: ASC/A7WM7C (Manchester Care Record)
Thank you for your request for information which was received by Manchester City Council on 10 March 2016 and has been considered under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please accept my apologies for the long delay in providing a response, which was due to workload and staffing issues in the team that co-ordinates freedom of information requests.
Please see below for the response to your request.
Please could you tell me whether your organisation is currently extracting and uploading personal confidential data about patients/clients to the Manchester Care Record (MCR) database?
Yes
… if your organisation is already uploading, or is planning to before March 31st 2017, then please can you provide me with the following:
· Any and all fair processing information (posters/leaflets/handouts) made available, or planning to be made available, to patients/clients informing them of this use of their data
Manchester City Council does not produce its own specific fair processing information in relation to the MCR as the process for informing patients and gaining consent is initited in GP practices. The Manchester Clinical Commisioning Groups have produced leaflets and consent documentation. Copies held by the Council are embedded below:
· Any and all policies on the implementation of MCR feeds by your organisation
These are contained in the information sharing agreement for the shared care record, which is embedded below:
· The types/nature of information that you are, or will be, extracting and uploading to the MCR database
Please see Section 2 of the information sharing agreement above.
I am aware of the opt-out arrangements available at contributing GP surgeries. However, I am interested in how patients can (or if they cannot) prohibit your organisation from extracting and uploading information to the MCR database in the first place (processing of their data which would have no purpose or justification if they have already opted-out at their GP surgery). Please could you tell me process available to patients to express dissent to *you*, for this type of processing of their data, and so block extraction uploading of all their personal confidential data to the MCR database by your organisation (in line with the DPA and NHS Constitution). For example, do clients have to "opt-in" first? And if so please send me the information sharing choices/"My permission to share" form that is in use.
The Council does not have a documented process for social care staff to follow if a patient tells them they wish to withdraw consent for their inclusion in the MCR database. And I understand that this has not happened so far. However, in practice, social care staff would feed any such request to the patient’s key worker or speak to their line manager if they were unsure how to proceed. Patients are informed of their right to “opt out” in the information leaflets (see above).
Please could you tell me whether the data controller for the MCR database informs you when patients have opted out of having a shared record (e.g. having opted out at their GP surgery), which would in theory allow you to switch of the feed to the MCR database for that patient's information
The daily feed from the social care system is generated in response to a list of consenting patients sent by secure FTP from the MCR. If patients have opted out they will not be in this list and therefore none of their social care data will be returned to the MCR.
I hope this response satisfies your request and I apologise once again for the delay.
This information may be subject to copyright. Freedom of Information does not give you an automatic right to re-use this information in a way that would infringe copyright, for example, by publishing the information or making multiple copies.
Please note if you are not satisfied with this response you may ask for an internal review. If you wish to complain you should contact me in the first instance. If you require more information about the Council’s access to information complaints procedure this can be downloaded from
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/download/6095/access_to_information_complaints_and_appeal_procedure
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely,
Karen Crier
Programme Lead
Children and Families Directorate