Tag Archives: care.data

#caredata, care.data, NHS England

Building Public Trust in care.data datasharing [3]: three steps to begin to build trust

Let’s assume the question of public trust is as important to those behind data sharing plans in the NHS [1] as they say it is. That the success of the care.data programme today and as a result, the very future of the NHS depends upon it.

“Without the care.data programme, the health service will not have a future, said Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information, NHS England.” [12]

And let’s assume we accept that public trust is not about the public, but about the organisation being trustworthy.[2]

The next step is to ask, how trustworthy is the programme and organisation behind care.data? And where and how do they start to build?

The table discussion on  [3] “Building Public Trust in Data Sharing”  considered  “what is the current situation?” and “why?”

What’s the current situation? On trust public opinion is measurable. The Royal Statistical Society Data Trust Deficit shows that the starting points are low with the state and government, but higher for GPs. It is therefore important that the medical profession themselves trust the programme in principle and practice. They are after all the care.data point of contact for patients.

The current status on the rollout, according to news reports, is that pathfinder  practices are preparing to rollout [4]  communications in the next few weeks. Engagement is reportedly being undertaken ‘over the summer months’. 

Understanding both public trust and the current starting point matters as the rollout is moving forwards and as leading charity and research organisation experts said: “Above all, patients, public and healthcare professionals must understand and trust the system. Building that trust is fundamental. We believe information from patient records has huge potential to save and improve lives but privacy concerns must be taken seriously. The stakes are too high to risk any further mistakes.” [The Guardian Letters, July 27, 2015]

Here’s three steps I feel could be addressed in the short term, to start to demonstrate why the public and professionals should trust  both organisation and process.

What is missing?

1. Opt out: The type 2 opt out does not work. [5]  

2 a. Professional voices called for answers and change: As mentioned in my previous summary various bodies called for change. Including the BMA whose policy [6] remains that care.data should be on a patient opt-in basis.

2b. Public voices called for answers and change: care.data’s own listening event feedback [7] concluded there was much more than ‘communicate the benefits’ that needed done. There is much missing. Such as questions on confusing SCR and care.data, legislation and concern over controlling its future change, GP concerns of their ethical stance, the Data Guardian’s statutory footing, correction of mistakes, future funding and more.
How are open questions being addressed? If at all?

3. A single clear point of ownership on data sharing and public trust communications> Is this now NIB, NHS England Patients and Information Directorate, the DH  who owns care.data now? It’s hard to ask questions if you don’t know where to go and the boards seem to have stopped any public communications. Why? The public needs clarity of organisational oversight.

What’s the Solution? 

1. Opt out: The type 2 opt out does not work. See the post graphic, the public wanted more clarity over opt out in 2014, so this needs explained clearly >>Solution: follows below from a detailed conversation with Mr. Kelsey.

2. Answers to professional opinions: The Caldicott panel,  raised 27 questions in areas of concern in their report. [8] There has not yet been any response to address them made available in the public domain by NHS England. Ditto APPG report, BMA LMC vote, and others >> Solution: publish the responses to these concerns and demonstrate what actions are being done to address them.

2b. Fill in the lack of transparency: There is no visibility of any care.data programme board meeting minutes or materials from 2015. In eight months, nothing has been published. Their 2014 proposal for transparency, appears to have come to nothing. Why?  The minutes from June-October 2014 are also missing entirely and the October-December 2014 materials published were heavily redacted. There is a care.data advisory board, which seems to have had little public visibility recently either. >> Solution: the care.data programme business case must be detailed and open to debate in the public domain by professionals and public. Scrutiny of its associated current costs and time requirements, and ongoing future financial implications at all levels should be welcomed by national, regional (CCG) and local level providers (GPs). Proactively publishing creates demonstrable reasons why both the organisation, and the plans are both trustworthy. Refusing this without clear justifications, seems counter productive, which is why I have challenged this in the public interest. [10]

3. Address public and professional confusion of ownership: Since data sharing and public trust are two key components of the care.data programme, it seems to come under the NIB umbrella, but there is a care.data programme board [9] of its own with a care.data Senior Responsible Owner and Programme Director. >> Solution: an overview of where all the different nationally driven NHS initiatives fit together and their owners would be helpful.

[Anyone got an interactive Gantt chart for all national level driven NHS initiatives?]

This would also help public and professionals see how and why different initiatives have co-dependencies. This could also be a tool to reduce the ‘them and us’ mentality. Also useful for modelling what if scenarios and reality checks on 5YFV roadmaps for example, if care.data pushes back six months, what else is delayed?

If the public can understand how things fit together it is more likely to invite questions, and an engaged public is more likely to be a supportive public. Criticism can be quashed if it’s incorrect. If it is justified criticism, then act on it.

Yes, these are hard decisions. Yes, to delay again would be awkward. If it were the right decision, would it be worse to ignore it and carry on regardless? Yes.

The most important of the three steps in detail: a conversation with Mr. Kelsey on Type 2 opt out. What’s the Solution?

We’re told “it’s complicated.” I’d say “it’s simple.” Here’s why.

At the table of about fifteen participants at the Bristol NIB event, Mr. Kelsey spoke very candidly and in detail about consent and the opt out.

On the differences between consent in direct care and other uses he first explained the assumption in direct care. Doctors and nurses are allowed to assume that you are happy to have your data shared, without asking you specifically. But he said, “beyond that boundary, for any other purpose, that is not a medical purpose in law, they have to ask you first.”

He went on to explain that what’s changed the whole dynamic of the conversation, is the fact that the current Secretary of State, decided that when your data is being shared for purposes other than your direct care, you not only have the right to be asked, but actually if you said you didn’t want it to be shared, that decision has to be respected, by your clinician.

He said: “So one of the reasons we’re in this rather complex situation now, is because if it’s for analysis, not only should you be asked, but also when you say no, it means no.”

Therefore, I asked him where the public stands with that now. Because at the moment there are ca. 700,000 people who we know said no in spring 2014.

Simply: They opted out of data used for secondary purposes, and HSCIC continues to share their data.

“Is anything more fundamentally damaging to trust, than feeling lied to?”

Mr. Kelsey told the table there is a future solution, but asked us not to tweet when. I’m not sure why, it was mid conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt:

“we haven’t yet been able to respect that preference, because technically the Information Centre doesn’t have the digital capability to actually respect it.”

He went on to say that they have hundreds of different databases and at the moment, it takes 24 hrs for a single person’s opt out to be respected across all those hundreds of databases. He explained a person manually has to enter a field on each database, to say a person’s opted out. He asked the hoped-for timing not be tweeted but explained that all those current historic objections which have been registered will be respected at a future date.

One of the other attendees expressed surprise that GP practices hadn’t been informed of that, having gathered consent choices in 2014 and suggested the dissent code could be extracted now.

The table discussion then took a different turn with other attendee questions, so I’m going to ask here what I would have asked next in response to his statement, “if it’s for analysis, not only should you be asked, but also when you say no, it means no.”

Where is the logic to proceed with pathfinder communications?

What was said has not been done and you therefore appear untrustworthy.

If there will be a future solution it will need communicated (again)?

“Trust is not about the public. Public trust is about the organisation being trustworthy.”

There needs to be demonstrable action that what the org said it would do, the org did. Respecting patient choice is not an optional extra. It is central in all current communications. It must therefore be genuine.

Knowing that what was promised was not respected, might mean millions of people choose to opt out who would not otherwise do so if the process worked when you communicate it.

Before then any public communications in Blackburn and Darwen, and Somerset, Hampshire and Leeds surely doesn’t make sense.

Either the pathfinders will test the same communications that are to be rolled out as a test for a national rollout, or they will not. Either those communications will explain the secondary uses opt out, or they will not. Either they will explain the opt out as is [type 2 not working] or as they hope it might be in future. [will be working] Not all of these can be true.

People who opt out on the basis of a broken process simply due to a technical flaw, are unlikely to ever opt back in again. If it works to starts with, they might choose to stay in.

Or will the communications roll out in pathfinders with a forward looking promise, repeating what was promised but has not yet been done? We will respect your promise (and this time we really mean it)? Would public trust survive that level of uncertainty? In my opinion, I don’t think so.

There needs to be demonstrable action in future as well, that what the org said it would do, the org did. So the use audit report and how any future changes will be communicated both seem basic principles to clarify for the current rollout as well.

So what’s missing and what’s the solution on opt out?

We’re told “it’s complicated.” I say “it’s simple.” The promised opt out must work before moving forward with anything else. If I’m wrong, then let’s get the communications materials out for broad review to see how they accommodate this and the future re-communication of  second process.

There must be a budgeted and planned future change communication process.

So how trustworthy is the programme and organisation behind care.data?

Public opinion on trust levels is measurable. The Royal Statistical Society Data Trust Deficit shows that the starting points are clear. The current position must address the opt out issue before anything else. Don’t say one thing, and do another.

To score more highly on the ‘truthworthy scale’ there must be demonstrable action, not simply more communications.

Behaviours need change and modelled in practice, to focus on people, not  tools and tech solutions, which make patients feel as if they are less important to the organisations than their desire to ‘enable data sharing’.

Actions need to demonstrate they are ethical and robust for a 21stC solution.

Policies, practical steps and behaviours all play vital roles in demonstrating that the organisations and people behind care.data are trustworthy.

These three suggestions are short term, by that I mean six months. Beyond that further steps need to be taken to be demonstrably trustworthy in the longer term and on an ongoing basis.

Right now, do I trust that the physical security of HSCIC is robust? Yes.

Do I trust that the policies in the programme would not to pass my data in the future to third party commercial pharma companies? No.
Do I believe that for enabling commissioning my fully identifiable confidential health records should be stored indefinitely with a third party? No.
Do I trust that the programme would not potentially pass my data to non-health organisations, such as police or Home Office? No.
Do I trust that the programme to tell me if they potentially change the purposes from those which they outline now ? No.

I am open to being convinced.

*****

What is missing from any communications to date and looks unlikely to be included in the current round and why that matters I address in my next post Building Public Trust [4]: Communicate the Benefits won’t work for care.data and then why a future change management model of consent needs approached now, and not after the pilot, I wrap up in [5]: Future solutions.

Continue reading Building Public Trust in care.data datasharing [3]: three steps to begin to build trust →

#caredata, care.data

Building Public Trust [2]: a detailed approach to understanding Public Trust in data sharing

Enabling public trust in data sharing is not about ‘communicating benefits’. For those interested in nitty gritty, some practical suggestions for progress in Building Public Trust in data sharing follows on from my summary after the NIB Bristol event 24/7/15.

Trust is an important if invisible currency used in the two-way transactions between an organisation and people.

So far, there have been many interactions and listening events but much of what professionals and the public called for, remains undone and public trust in the programme remains unchanged since 2014.

If you accept that it is not public trust that needs built, but the tangible trusthworthiness of an organisation, then you should also ask  what needs done by the organisation to make that demonstrable change?

What’s today’s position on Public Trust of data storage and use

Trust in the data sharing process is layered and dependent on a number of factors. Mostly [based on polls and public event feedback from 2014] “who will access my data and what will they use it for?”

I’m going to look more closely below at planned purposes: research and commissioning.

It’s also important to remember that trust is not homogeneous. Trust  is nuanced even within the single relationship between one individual and another. Trust, like consent, is stratified – you may trust the Post Office to deliver a letter or postcard, but sign up to recorded delivery for something valuable.

So for example when it comes to secondary uses data sharing, I might trust HSCIC with storing and using my health records for anonymous statistics, for analysis of immunisation and illness patterns for example. But as long as they continue to share with the Home Office, police or other loosely defined third parties [5], do I want them to have fully  identifiable data at all?

Those bodies have their own public trust issues at an all time low.

Mixing the legitimate users of health data with these Back Office punitive  uses will invite some people’s opt out who would otherwise not. Some of the very groups who need the most health and social care understanding, research and care, will be the very groups who opt out if there is a possibility of police and Home Office access by the back door. Telling traveller communities what benefits care.data will bring them is wasted effort when they see NHS health data is a police accessible register. I know. I’ve talked to some about it.

That position on data storage and use should be reconsidered if NHS England is serious that this is about health and for the benefit of individuals and communities’ well being.

What has HSCIC changed to demonstrate that  it is trustworthy?

A new physical secure setting is being built that will enable researchers to view research data but not take raw data away.

That is something they can control, and have changed, and it demonstrates they take the public seriously and we reciprocate.

That is great – demonstrable change by the organisation, inviting change in the public.

That’s practical, so what can be done on policy by NHS England/DH?

What else should be done to demonstrate policy is trustworthy?

Act on what the public and professionals asked for in 2014. [8]

Right now it feels as though in public communications that the only kind of relationship that is wanted on the part of the leadership is a one night stand.

It’s all about what the programme wants. Minimise the objections, get the data, and sneak out. Even when its leaders talk about some sort of ongoing consent model, the focus is still about ‘how to enable sharing data.’

This focus is the wrong one. If you want to encourage people to share they need to know why, what’s in it for them, and why do you want it? What collecting the data is about is still important to explain and specifically, each time the scope changes if you are doing it fairly.

Remember. Data-sharing is not vital to future-proof the NHS. Using knowledge wisely is. 

What is the policy for the future of primary care research?

The CPRD already enables primary care GP data to be linked with secondary data for research. In fact it already links more items from GP held data than current are.data plans to extract. So what benefit will care.data offer to research that is not already available today?

Simply having ever more data, stored in more places will not make us wiser. Before it’s collected repeatedly, it is right to question why.

What do we have collected already? How is it used? Where are the gaps in what we want to achieve through the knowledge we could gain. It’s NOT simply about filling in what gaps exist in what data we could gather. Understand the purposes and what will be gained to see if it’s worth the efforts. Prioritise. Collect it all, is not a solution.

I had thought that the types of data to be collected in care.data were clear, and how it differs from direct care was clear. But the Bristol NIB meeting demonstrated a wide range of understanding in NHS and CCG staff, Local Authority staff, IT staff, IG professionals, data providers and other third parties.  Data for secondary purposes are not to be conflated with direct care.

But that’s not what care.data sharing is about. So where to start with public trust, asked the NIB Bristol #health2020 meeting?

Do you ignore the starting point or tailor your approach to it?

“The NHS is at a crossroads and needs to change and improve as it moves forward. That was the message from NHS England’s Chief Executive Simon Stevens as a Five Year Forward View for the NHS was launched.”  [1] [NHS England, Oct 2014]

As the public is told over and over again that change is vital to the health of a sustainable NHS, a parallel public debate rages, whether the policy-making organisations behind the NHS – the commissioning body NHS England, the Department of Health and Cabinet Office – are serious about the survival of universal health and care provision, and about supporting its clinicians.

It is against this backdrop, and under the premise that obtaining patient data for centralised secondary uses is do or die for the NHS, that the NIB #health2020 has set out [2] work stream 4: “Build and sustain public trust: Deliver roadmap to consent based information sharing and assurance of safeguards”

“Without the care.data programme, the health service will not have a future, said Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information, NHS England.” [3]

 

Polls say [A] nearly all institutions suffer from a ‘trust in data deficit’. Trust in them to use data appropriately, is lower than trust in the organisation generally.

Public trust in what the Prime Minister says on health is low.

Trust in the Secretary of State for Health is possibly at an all time low, with: “a bitter divide, a growing rift between the Secretary of State for Health and the medical profession.” [New Statesman, July 2015]

This matters. care.data needs the support of professionals and public.

ADRN research showed multiple contributing factors: “Participants were also worried about personal data being leaked, lost, shared or sold by government departments to third parties, particularly commercial companies. Low trust in government more generally seemed to be driving these views.” [Dialogue on data]

It was interesting to see all the same issues as reflected by the public in care.data listening events, asked from the opposite perspective from data users.

But it was frustrating to sit ay the Bristol NIB #health2020 event and discuss questions around the same issues on data sharing already discussed at care.data events through the last 18 months.

Nothing substantial has changed other then HSCIC’s physical security for data storage.

It is frustrating knowing that these change and communications issues will keep coming back again and again if not addressed.

Personally, I’m starting to lose trust there is any real intention for change, if senior leadership is unwilling to address this properly and change themselves.

To see a change in Public Trust do what the public asked to see change: On Choice

At every care.data meeting I attended in 2014, people asked for choice.

They asked for boundaries between the purposes of data uses, real choice.

Willingness for their information to be used by academic researchers in the public interest does not equate to being willing for it to be used by a pharmaceutical company for their own market research and profit.

The public understand these separations well. To say they do not, underestimates people and does not reflect public feeling. Anyone attending 2014 care.data events, has heard many people discuss this. They want a granular consent model.

This would offer a red line between how data are used for what purposes.

Of the data-sharing organisations today some are trusted and others are not. Offering a granular consent approach would offer a choice of a red line between who gets access to data.

This choice of selective use, would encourage fewer people to opt out from all purposes, allowing more data to be available for research for example.

To see a change in Public Trust do what the public asked to see: Explain your purposes more robustly

Primarily this data is to be used and kept indefinitely for commissioning purposes. Research wasn’t included as purposes for care.data gathering  in the planned specifications for well over a year. [After research outcry]

Yet specific to commissioning, the Caldicott recommendations [3] were very clear; commissioning purposes were insufficient and illegal grounds for sharing fully identifiable data which was opposed by NHS England’s Commissioning Board:

“The NHS Commissioning Board suggested that the use of personal confidential data for commissioning purposes would be legitimate because it would form part of a ‘consent deal’ between the NHS and service users. The Review Panel does not support such a proposition. There is no evidence that the public is more likely to trust commissioners to handle personal confidential data than other groups of professionals who have learned how to work within the existing law.”

NHS England seems unwilling to change this position, despite the professionals bodies and the public’s opposition to sharing fully identifiable data for commissioning purposes [care.data listening events 2014]. Is it any wonder that they keep hitting the same barrier? More people don’t want that to happen than you do. Something’s gotta give.

Ref the GPES Customer Requirements specification from March 2013 v2.1 which states on page 11: “…for commissioning purposes, it is important to understand activity undertaken (or not undertaken) in all care settings. The “delta load” approach (by which only new events are uploaded) requires such data to be retained, to enable subsequent linkage.”

The public has asked for red lines to differentiate between the purposes of data uses. NHS England and the Department of Health policy seems unwilling to do so.  Why?

To see a change in Public Trust do what the public asked to see: Red lines on policy of commercial use – and its impact on opt out

The public has asked for red lines outlawing commercial exploitation of their data. Though it was said it was changed, in practice it is hard to see. Department of Health policy seems unwilling to be clear, because the Care Act 2012 purposes remained loose.  Why?

As second best, the public has asked for choice not to have their data used at all for secondary purposes and were offered an opt out.

NHS England leaflet and the Department of Health, Secretary of State publicly promised this but has been unable to implement it and to date has made no public announcement on when it will be respected.  Why?

Trust does not exist in a vacuum.  What you say and what you actually do, matter. Policy and practice are co-dependent. Public trust depends on your organisations being trustworthy.

Creating public trust is not the government, the DH or NIB’s task ahead. They must instead focus on improving their own competency, honesty and reliability and through those, they will demonstrate that they can be trusted.

That the secondary purposes opt out has not been respected does not demonstrate those qualities.

“Trust is not about the public. Public trust is about the organisation being trustworthy.”

How will they do that?

Let the DH/NHS England and organisations in policy and practice address what they themselves will stop and start doing to bring about change in their own actions and behaviours.

Communications change request: Start by addressing the current position NOT what the change will bring. You must move people along the curve , not dump them with a fait accomplice and wonder why the reaction is so dire.

changecurve

Vital for this is the current opt out; what was promised and what was done.

The secondary uses opt out must be implemented with urgency.

To see a change in Public Trust you need to take action. the Programme needs to do what the public asked to see change: on granular consent, on commercial use and defined purposes.

And to gather suggested actions, start asking the right questions.

Not ‘how do we rebuild public trust?’ but “how can we demonstrate that we are trustworthy to the public?”

1. How can a [data-sharing] org demonstrate it is trustworthy?
2. Identify: why people feel confident their trust is well placed?
3. Why do clinical professionals feel confident in any org?
4. What would harm the organisational-trust-chain in future?
5. How will the org-trust-chain be positively maintained in future?
6. What opportunities will be missed if that does not happen?
(identify value)

Yes the concepts are close,  but how it is worded defines what is done.

These apparent small differences make all the difference in how people provide you ideas, how you harness them into real change and improvement.

Only then can you start understanding why “communicating the benefits” has not worked and how it should affect future communications  materials.

From this you will find it much easier to target actual tasks, and short and long term do-able solutions than an open discussion will deliver. Doing should  include thinking/attitudes as well as actions.

This will lead to communications messages that are concrete not wooly. More about that in the next posts.

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To follow, for those interested in nitty gritty, some practical suggestions for progress in Building Public Trust in data sharing:

Part one: A seven step top line summary – What I’d like to see change addressing public trust in health data sharing for secondary purposes.

This is Part two: a New Approach is needed to understanding Public Trust For those interested in a detailed approach on Trust. What Practical and Policy steps influence trust. On Reserach and Commissioning. Trust is not homogeneous. Trust  is nuanced even within the single relationship between one individual and another. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Part three: Know where you’re starting from. What behaviours influence trust and how can we begin to see them demonstrated. Mr.Kelsey discusses  consent and opt out. Fixing what has already been communicated is vital before new communications get rolled out. Vital to tailor the content of public communications, for public trust and credibility the programme must be clear what is missing and what needs filled in. #Health2020 Bristol NIB meeting.

Part four: “Communicate the Benefits” won’t work – How Communications influence trust. For those interested in more in-depth reasons, I outline in part two why the communications approach is not working, why the focus on ‘benefits’ is wrong, and fixes.

Part five: Future solutions – why a new approach may work better for future trust – not to attempt to rebuild trust where there is now none, but strengthen what is already trusted and fix today’s flawed behaviours; honesty and reliability, that  are vital to future proofing public trust.

 

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References:

[1] NHS England October 2014 http://www.england.nhs.uk/2014/10/23/nhs-leaders-vision/

[2] Workstream 4: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/442829/Work_Stream_4.pdf

[3] Caldicott Review 2: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/192572/2900774_InfoGovernance_accv2.pdf

[4] Missing Programme Board documents: 2015 and June-October 2014

[5] HSCIC Data release register

[6] Telegraph article on Type 2 opt out http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11655777/Nearly-1million-patients-could-be-having-confidential-data-shared-against-their-wishes.html

[7] Why Wanting a Better Care.Data is not Luddite: http://davidg-flatout.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/why-wanting-better-caredata-is-not.html

[8] Talking to the public about using their data is crucial- David Walker, StatsLife http://www.statslife.org.uk/opinion/1316-talking-to-the-public-about-using-their-data-is-crucial

[9] Dame Fiona Caldicott appointed in new role as National Data Guardian

[10] Without care.data health service has no future says director http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240216402/Without-Caredata-we-wont-have-a-health-service-for-much-longer-says-NHS

[11] Coin Street, care.data advisory meeting, September 6th 2014: https://storify.com/ruth_beattie/care-data-advisory-group-open-meeting-6th-septembe

[12] Public questions unanswered: https://jenpersson.com/pathfinder/

#caredata, care.data, change, change management, confidentiality, NHS England

Building Public Trust in care.data sharing [1]: Seven step summary to a new approach

Here’s my opinion after taking part in the NIB #health2020 Bristol event 24/7/2015 and presentation of plans at the June King’s Fund hosted event. Data sharing includes plans for extraction and uses of primary care data by third parties, charging ahead under the care.data banner.

Wearing my hat from a previous role in change management and communications, I share my thoughts in the hope the current approach can adapt and benefit from outside perspectives.

The aim of “Rebuilding and sustaining Public trust” [1] needs refocused to treat the cause, not only the symptoms of the damage done in 2014.  Here’s why:

A Seven Step Top Line Summary

1. Abstract ‘public trust’ is not vital to the future of data sharing. Being demonstrably worthy of public trust is.

2. Data-sharing is not vital to future-proof the NHS. Using knowledge wisely is.

3. A timed target to ‘get the public’s data’, is not what is needed. Having a stable, long term future-proofed and governable model is.

4. Tech solutions do not create trust. Enable the positive human response to what the org wants from people, enabling their confident ‘yes to data-sharing.’ [It might be supported by technology-based tools.]

5. Communications that tell the public ‘we know best, trust us’ fail.  While professional bodies [BMA [2], GPES advisory group, APPG report calling for a public benefits plan, ICO, and expert advice such as Caldicott] are ignored or remain to be acted upon, it remains challenging for the public to see how the programme’s needs, motives and methods are trustworthy. “The [Caldicott 2] Review Panel found that commissioners do not need dispensation from confidentiality, human rights & data protection law.” [3] Something’s gotta give. What will it be?

6. care.data consistency. Relationships must be reliable and have integrity.
“Trust us – see the benefits” [But we won’t share the business cost/benefit plan.]
“Trust us – we’re transparent” [But there is nothing published in 2015 at all from the programme board minutes] [4]
“Trust us – we’ll only use your data wisely, with the patient in control” [Ignore that we didn’t before [5] and that we still share your data for secondary uses even if you opted out [6] and no, we can’t tell you when it will be fixed…]

7. Voices do not exist in a vacuum. Being trustworthy on care.data  does not stand alone but is part of the NHS ‘big picture’.
Department of Health to GPs: “Trust us about data sharing.’  [And ignore that we haven’t respected many of  your judgement or opinions.]
NHS England to GPs: “Trust us about data sharing.’  [And ignore our lack of general GP support: MPIG withdrawal, misrepresentation in CQC reports] NHS England and Department of Health to professionals and public: “The NHS is safe in our hands.’ Everyone: “We see no evidence that plans for cost savings, 7 day working, closures and the 5YFV integration will bring the promised benefits. Let us ‘see the holes’, so that we can trust you based on evidence.”

See the differences?

Target the cause not Symptom:

The focus in the first half, the language used by NHS England/NIB/ DH, sets out their expectations of the public. “You must trust us and how you give us your data.”

The focus should instead to be on the second half, a shift to the organisation, the NHS England/NIB/ DH, and set out expectations from the public point-of-view. ” Enable the public to trust the organisation. Enable individual citizens to trust what is said by individual leaders. This will enable citizens to be consensual sharers in the activity your organisation imposes – the demand for care.data through a statutory gateway, obliging GPs to disclose patient data.

The fact that trust is broken, and specifically to data-sharing that there is the deficit [A] between how much the public trusts the organisation and how the organisation handles data, is not the fault of the public, or “1.4 M NHS staff”, or the media, or patient groups’ pressure. It’s based on proven experience.

It’s based on how organisations have handled data in the past. [5] Specifically on the decisions made by DH, and the Information Centre and leaders in between. Those who chose to sell patient data without asking the public.

The fact that trust is broken is based on how leadership individuals in those organisations have responded to that. Often taking no responsibility for loss.

No matter how often we hear “commissioners will get a better joined up picture of care needs and benefit you”, it does not compensate for past failings.

Only demonstrable actions to show why it will not happen in future can start that healing process.

Target the timing to the solution, not a shipping deadline

“Building trust to enable data sharing” aims at quick fixes, when what is needed is a healing process and ongoing relationship maintenance.

Timing has to be tailored to what needs done, not an ‘artificial deadline’. Despite that being said it doesn’t seem to match reality.

Addressing the Symptoms and not the Cause, will not find a Cure

What needs done?

Lack of public trust, the data trust deficit [A] are symptoms in the public to be understood. But it is the causes in the organisations that must be treated.

So far many NHS England staff I have met in relation to care.data, appear to have a “them and us” mentality. It’s almost tangibly wrapped up in the language used at these meetings or in defensive derision of public concerns: “Tin foil hat wearers”, “Luddites” [7] and my personal favourite, ‘Consent fetishists.’ [8] It’s counter productive and seems borne from either a lack of understanding, or frustration.

The NIB/DH/NHS England/ P&I Directorate must accept they cannot force any consensual change in an emotion-based belief based on past experiences, held by the public.

Those people each have different starting points of knowledge and beliefs.  As one attendee said, “There is no single patient replicated 60 million times.”

The NIB/DH/NHS England/ P&I Directorate can only change what they themselves can control. They have to model and be seen to model change that is trustworthy.

How can an organisation demonstrate it is trustworthy?

This means shifting the focus of the responsibility for change from public and professionals, to leadership organisation.

There is a start in this work stream, but there is little new that is concrete.

The National Data Guardian (NDG) role has been going to be put on a legal footing “at the earliest opportunity” since November 2014. [9] Nine months.

Updated information governance guidance is on the way.

Then there’s two really strong new items that would underpin public trust, to be planned in a ‘roadmap’: the first a system that can record and share consent decisions and the second, to provide information on the use to which an individual’s data has been put.

How and when those two keystones to public trust will be actually offered appear unknown. They will  encourage public trust by enabling choice and control of our data. So I would ask, if we’re not there yet on the roadmap, how can consent options be explained to the public in care.data communications, if there is as yet no mechanism to record and effect them? More on that later.

Secondly, when will a usage report be available? That will be the proof to demonstrate that what was offered, was honoured. It is one of the few tools the organisation(s) can offer to demonstrate they are trustworthy: you said, we did. So again, why jeopardise public trust by rolling out data extractions into the existing, less trustworthy environment?

How well this is done will determine whether it can realise its hoped for benefits. How the driving leadership influences that outcome, will be about the organisational approach to opt out, communicating care.data content decisions, the way and the channels in which they are communicated, accepting what has not worked to date and planning long-term approaches to communicating change before you start the pathfinders. [Detailed steps on this follows.]

Considering the programme’s importance we have been told, it’s vital to get right. [10]

i believe changing the approach from explaining benefits and focus on public trust, to demonstrating why the public should trust demonstrable changes made, will make all the difference.

So before rolling out next data sharing steps think hard what the possible benefits and risks will be, versus waiting for a better environment to do it in.

Conclusion: Trust is not about the public. Public trust is about the organisation being trustworthy. Over to you, orgs.

####

To follow, for those interested in nitty gritty, some practical suggestions for progress in Building Public Trust in data sharing:

This is Part one: A seven step top line summary – What I’d like to see change addressing public trust in health data sharing for secondary purposes.

Part two: a New Approach is needed to understanding Public Trust For those interested in a detailed approach on Trust. What Practical and Policy steps influence trust. On Research and Commissioning. Trust is not homogeneous. Trust  is nuanced even within the single relationship between one individual and another. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Part three: Know where you’re starting from. What behaviours influence trust. Fixing what has already been communicated is vital before new communications get rolled out. Vital to content of your communications and vital for public trust and credibility.

Part four: Communicate the Benefits won’t work – How Communications influence trust. For those interested in more in-depth reasons, I outline in part two why the communications approach is not working, why the focus on ‘benefits’ is wrong, and fixes.

Part five: Future solutions – why a new approach may work better for future trust – not to attempt to rebuild trust where there is now none, but strengthen what is already trusted and fix today’s flawed behaviours; honesty and reliability, that  are vital to future proofing trust

####

Background References:

I’m passionate about people using technology to make their jobs and lives better, simpler, and about living well. So much so, that this became over 5000 words. To solve that, I’ve assumed a baseline knowledge and I will follow up with separate posts on why a new approach is needed to understanding “Public Trust”, to “Communicating the benefits” and “Being trustworthy and other future solutions”.

If this is all new, welcome, and I suggest you look over some of the past 18 months posts that include  public voice captured from eight care.data  events in 2014. care.data is about data sharing for secondary purposes not direct care.

[1] NHS England October 2014 http://www.england.nhs.uk/2014/10/23/nhs-leaders-vision/

[2] BMA LMC Vote 2014 http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2014/june/patients-medical-data-sacrosanct-declares–bma

[3] Caldicott Review 2: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/192572/2900774_InfoGovernance_accv2.pdf

[4] Missing Programme Board documents: 2015 and June-October 2014

[5] HSCIC Data release register

[6] Telegraph article on Type 2 opt out http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11655777/Nearly-1million-patients-could-be-having-confidential-data-shared-against-their-wishes.html

[7] Why Wanting a Better Care.Data is not Luddite: http://davidg-flatout.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/why-wanting-better-caredata-is-not.html

[8] Talking to the public about using their data is crucial- David Walker, StatsLife http://www.statslife.org.uk/opinion/1316-talking-to-the-public-about-using-their-data-is-crucial

[9] Dame Fiona Caldicott appointed in new role as National Data Guardian

[10] Without care.data health service has no future says director http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240216402/Without-Caredata-we-wont-have-a-health-service-for-much-longer-says-NHS

Polls of public feeling:

[A] Royal Statistical Society Data Trust Deficit http://www.statslife.org.uk/news/1672-new-rss-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers

(B] Dialogue on data – work carried out through the ADRN

 

 

#caredata, care.data, change, trust

care.data : the economic value of data versus the public interest?

 This is a repost of my opinion piece published in StatsLife in June 2015.

The majority of the public supports the concept of using data for public benefit.[1] But the measurable damage done in 2014 to the public’s trust in data sharing [2] and reasons for it, are an ongoing threat to its achievement.

Rebuilding trust and the public legitimacy of government data gathering could be a task for Sisyphus, given the media atmosphere clouded by the smoke and mirrors of state surveillance. As Mark Taylor, chair of the NHS’s Confidentiality Advisory Group wrote when he considered the tribulations of care.data [3] ‘…we need a much better developed understanding of ‘the public interest’ than is currently offered by law.’

So what can we do to improve this as pilot sites move forward and for other research? Can we consistently quantify the value of the public good and account for intangible concerns and risks alongside demonstrable benefits? Do we have a common understanding of how the public feels what is in its own best interests?

And how are shifting public and professional expectations to be reflected in the continued approach to accessing citizens’ data, with the social legitimacy upon which research depends?

Listening and lessons learned

Presented as an interval to engage the public and professionals, the 18 month long pause in care.data involved a number of ‘listening’ events. I attended several of these to hear what people were saying about the use of personal health data. The three biggest areas of concern raised frequently [4] were:

  • Commercial companies’ use and re-use of data
  • Lack of transparency and control over who was accessing data for what secondary purposes, and
  • Potential resulting harms: from data inaccuracy, loss of trust and confidentiality, and fear of discrimination.

It’s not the use of data per se that the majority of the public raises objection to. Indeed many people would object if health data were not used for research in the public interest. Objections were more about the approach to this in the past and in the future.

There is a common understanding of what bona fide research is, how it serves the public interest, and polls confirm a widespread acceptance of ‘reasonable’ research use of data. The HSCIC audit under Sir Nick Partridge [5] acknowledged that some past users or raw data sharing had not always met public expectations of what was ‘reasonable’. The new secure facility should provide a safe setting for managing this better, but open questions remain on governance and transparency.

As one question from a listening event succinctly put it [6]:

‘Are we saying there will be only clinical use of the data – no marketing, no insurance, no profit making? This is our data.’

Using the information gleaned from data was often seen as exploitation when used in segmenting the insurance markets, consumer market research or individual targeting. There is also concern, even outright hostility, to raw health data being directly sold, re-used or exchanged as a commodity – regardless whether this is packaged as ‘for profit’ or ‘covering administrative costs’.

Add to that, the inability to consent to, control or find out who uses individual level data and for what purpose, or to delete mistakes, and there is a widespread sense of disempowerment and loss of trust.

Quantifying the public perception of care.data’s value

While the pause was to explain the benefits of the care.data extraction, it actually seemed clear at meetings that people already understood the potential benefits. There is clear public benefit to be gained for example, from using data as a knowledge base, often by linking with other data to broaden scientific and social insights, generating public good.

What people were asking, was what new knowledge would be gained that isn’t gathered from non-identifiable data already? Perhaps more tangible, yet less discussed at care.data events, is the economic benefits for commissioning use by using data as business intelligence to inform decisions in financial planning and cost cutting.

There might be measurable economic public good from data, from outside interests who will make a profit by using data to create analytic tools. Some may even sell information back into the NHS as business insights.

Care.data is also to be an ‘accelerator’ for other projects [7]. But it is hard to find publicly available evidence to a) support the economic arguments for using primary care data in any future projects, and b) be able to compare them with the broader current and future needs of the NHS.

A useful analysis could find that potential personal benefits and the public good overlap, if the care.data business case were to be made available by NHS England in the public domain. In a time when the NHS budget is rarely out of the media it seems a no-brainer that this should be made open.

Feedback consistently shows that making money from data raises more concern over its uses. Who all future users might be remains open as the Care Act 2014 clause is broadly defined. Jamie Reed MP said in the debate [8]: ‘the new clause provides for entirely elastic definitions that, in practice, will have a limitless application.’

Unexpected uses and users of public data has created many of its historical problems. But has the potential future cost of ‘limitless’ applications been considered in the long term public interest? And what of the confidentiality costs [9]? The NHS’s own Privacy Impact Assessment on care.data says [10]:

‘The extraction of personal confidential data from providers without consent carries the risk that patients may lose trust in the confidential nature of the health service.‘

Who has quantified the cost of that loss of confidence and have public and professional opinions been accounted for in any cost/benefit calculations? All these tangible and intangible factors should be measured in calculating its value in the public interest and ask, ‘what does the public want?’ It is after all, our data and our NHS.

Understanding shifting public expectations

‘The importance of building and maintaining trust and confidence among all stakeholder groups concerned – including researchers, institutions, ethical review boards and research participants – as a basis for effective data sharing cannot be overstated.’ – David Carr, policy adviser at the Wellcome Trust [11]

To rebuild trust in data sharing, individuals need the imbalance of power corrected, so they can control ‘their data’. The public was mostly unaware health records were being used for secondary purposes by third parties, before care.data. In February 2014, the secretary of state stepped in to confirm an opt-out will be offered, as promised by the prime minister in his 2010 ‘every patient a willing research patient’ speech.

So leaving aside the arguments for and against opt-in versus opt-out (and that for now it is not technically possible to apply the 700,000 opt-outs already made) the trouble is, it’s all or nothing. By not offering any differentiation between purposes, the public may feel forced to opt-out of secondary data sharing, denying all access to all their data even if they want to permit some uses and not others.

Defining and differentiating secondary uses and types of ‘research purposes’ could be key to rebuilding trust. The HSCIC can disseminate information ‘for the purposes of the provision of health care or adult social care, or the promotion of health’. This does not exclude commercial use. Cutting away commercial purposes which appear exploitative from purposes in the public interest could benefit the government, commerce and science if, as a result, more people would be willing to share their data.

This choice is what the public has asked for at care.data events, other research events [12] and in polls, but to date has yet to see any move towards. I feel strongly that the government cannot continue to ignore public opinion and assume its subjects are creators of data, willing to be exploited, without expecting further backlash. Should a citizen’s privacy become a commodity to put a price tag on if it is a basic human right?

One way to protect that right is to require an active opt-in to sharing. With ongoing renegotiation of public rights and data privacy at EU level, consent is no longer just a question best left ignored in the pandora’s box of ethics, as it has been for the last 25 years in hospital data secondary use. [13]

The public has a growing awareness, differing expectations, and different degrees of trust around data use by different users. Policy makers ignoring these expectations, risk continuing to build on a shaky foundation and jeopardise the future data sharing infrastructure. Profiting at the expense of public feeling and ethical good practice is an unsustainable status quo.

Investing in the public interest for future growth

The care.data pause has revealed differences between the thinking of government, the drivers of policy, the research community, ethics panels and the citizens of the country. This is not only about what value we place on our own data, but how we value it as a public good.

Projects that ignore the public voice, that ‘listen’ but do not act, risk their own success and by implication that of others. And with it they risk the public good they should create. A state which allows profit for private companies to harm the perception of good research practice sacrifices the long term public interest for short term gain. I go back to the words of Mark Taylor [3]:

‘The commitment must be an ongoing one to continue to consult with people, to continue to work to optimally protect both privacy and the public interest in the uses of health data. We need to use data but we need to use it in ways that people have reason to accept. Use ‘in the public interest’ must respect individual privacy. The current law of data protection, with its opposed concepts of ‘privacy’ and ‘public interest’, does not do enough to recognise the dependencies or promote the synergies between these concepts.’ 

The economic value of data, personal rights and the public interest are not opposed to one another, but have synergies and a co-dependency. The public voice from care.data listening could positively help shape a developing consensual model of data sharing if the broader lessons learned are built upon in an ongoing public dialogue. As Mark Taylor also said, ‘we need to do this better.’

*******

[1] according to various polls and opinions gathered from my own discussions and attendance at care.data events in 2014 [ refs: 2, 4. 6. 12]

[2] The data trust deficit, work by the Royal Statistical Society in 2014

[3] M Taylor, “Information Governance as a Force for Good? Lessons to be Learnt from Care.data”, (2014) 11:1 SCRIPTed 1 http://script-ed.org/?p=1377

[4] Communications and Change – blogpost https://jenpersson.com/care-data-communications-change/

[5] HSCIC audit under Sir Nick Partridge https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-data-releases-made-by-the-nhs-information-centre

[6] Listening events, NHS Open Day blogpost https://jenpersson.com/care-data-communications-core-concepts-part-two/

[7] Accelerator for projects mentioned include the 100K Genomics programme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HCbXsC4z8

[8] Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140311/debtext/140311-0002.htm

[9] Confidentiality Costs; StatsLife http://www.statslife.org.uk/opinion/1723-confidentiality-costs

[10] care.data privacy impact assessment Jan 2014 [newer version has not been publicly released] http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/pia-care-data.pdf

[11] Wellcome Trust http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2015/04/08/sharing-research-data-to-improve-public-health/

[12]  Dialogue on Data – Exploring the public’s views on using linked administrative data for research purposes: https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1652/Dialogue-on-Data.aspx

[13] HSCIC Lessons Learned http://www.hscic.gov.uk/article/4780/HSCIC-learns-lessons-of-the-past-with-immediate-programme-for-change

The views expressed in this article originally published in the Opinion section of StatsLife are solely mine, the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Royal Statistical Society.

#caredata, care.data, engagement, health

The nhs.uk digital platform: a personalised gateway to a new NHS?

In recent weeks rebranding the poverty definitions and the living wage in the UK deservedly received more attention than the rebrand of the website NHS Choices into ‘nhs.uk.‘

The site that will be available only in England and Wales despite its domain name, will be the doorway to enter a personalised digital NHS offering.

As the plans proceed without public debate, I took some time to consider the proposal announced through the National Information Board (NIB) because it may be a gateway to a whole new world in our future NHS. And if not, will it be a  big splash of cash but create nothing more than a storm-in-a-teacup?

In my previous post I’d addressed some barriers to digital access. Will this be another? What will it offer that isn’t on offer already today and how will the nhs.uk platform avoid the problems of its predecessor HealthSpace?

Everyone it seems is agreed, the coming cuts are going to be ruthless. So, like Alice, I’m curious. What is down the rabbit hole ahead?

What’s the move from NHS Choices to nhs.uk about?

The new web platform nhs.uk would invite users to log on, using a system that requires identity, and if compulsory, would be another example of a barrier to access simply from a convenience point of view, even leaving digital security risks aside.

What will nhs.uk offer to incentivise users and offer benefit as a trade off against these risks, to go down the new path into the unknown and like it?

“At the heart of the domain , will be the development of nhs.uk into a new integrated health and care digital platform that will be a source of access to information, directorate, national services and locally accredited applications.”

In that there is nothing new compared with information, top down governance and signposting done by NHS Choices today.  

What else?

“Nhs.uk will also become the citizen ’s gateway to the creation of their own personal health record, drawing on information from the electronic health records in primary and secondary care.”

nhs.uk will be an access point to patient personal confidential records

Today’s patient online we are told offers 97% of patients access to their own GP created records access. So what will nhs.uk offer more than is supposed to be on offer already today? Adding wearables data into the health record is already possible for some EMIS users, so again, that won’t be new. It does state it will draw on both primary and secondary records which means getting some sort of interoperability to show both hospital systems data and GP records. How will the platform do this?

Until care.data many people didn’t know their hospital record was stored anywhere outside the hospital. In all the care.data debates the public was told that HES/SUS was not like a normal record in the sense we think of it. So what system will secondary care records come from? [Some places may have far to go. My local hospital pushes patients round with beige paper folders.] The answer appears to be an unpublished known or an unknown.

What else?

nhs.uk will be an access point to tailored ‘signposting’ of services

In addition to access to your personal medical records in the new “pull not push” process the nhs.uk platform will also offer information and services, in effect ‘advertising’ local services, to draw users to want to use it, not force its use. And through the power of web tracking tools combined with log in, it can all be ‘tailored’ or ‘targeted’ to you, the user.

“Creating an account will let you save information, receive emails on your chosen topics and health goals and comment on our content.”

Do you want to receive emails on your chosen topics or comment on content today? How does it offer more than can already be done by signing up now to NHS Choices?

NHS Choices today already offers information on local services, on care provision and symptoms’ checker.

What else?

Future nhs.uk users will be able to “Find, Book, Apply, Pay, Order, Register, Report and Access,” according to the NIB platform headers.

platform

“Convenient digital transactions will be offered like ordering and paying for prescriptions, registering with GPs, claiming funds for treatment abroad, registering as an organ and blood donor and reporting the side effects of drugs . This new transactional focus will complement nhs.uk’s existing role as the authoritative source of condition and treatment information, NHS services and health and care quality information.

“This will enable citizens to communicate with clinicians and practices via email, secure video links and fill out pre-consultation questionnaires. They will also be able to include data from their personal applications and wearable devices in their personal record. Personal health records will be able to be linked with care accounts to help people manage their personal budget.”

Let’s consider those future offerings more carefully.

Separating out the the transactions that for most people will be one off, extremely rare or never events (my blue) leaves other activities which you can already do or will do via the patient online programme (in purple).

The question is that although video and email are not yet widespread where they do work today and would in future, would they not be done via a GP practice system, not a centralised service? Or is the plan not that you could have an online consultation with ‘your’ named GP through nhs.uk but perhaps just ‘any’ GP from a centrally provided GP pool? Something like this? 

That leaves two other things, which are both payment tools (my bold).

i. digital transactions will be offered like ordering and paying for prescriptions
ii. …linked with care accounts to help people manage their personal budget.”

Is the core of the new offering about managing money at individual and central level?

Beverly Bryant, ‎Director of Strategic Systems and Technology at NHS England, said at the #kfdigi2015 June 16th event, that implementing these conveniences had costs saving benefits as well: “The driver is customer service, but when you do it it actually costs less.”

How are GP consultations to cost less, significantly less, to be really cost effective compared with the central platform to enable it to happen, when the GP time is the most valuable part and remains unchanged spent on the patient consultation and paperwork and referral for example?

That most valuable part to the patient, may be seen as what is most costly to ‘the system’.

If the emphasis is on the service saving money, it’s not clear what is in it for people to want to use it and it risks becoming another Healthspace, a high cost top down IT rollout without a clear customer driven need.

The stated aim is that it will personalise the user content and experience.

That gives the impression that the person using the system will get access to information and benefits unique and relevant to them.

If this is to be something patients want to use (pull) and are not to be forced to use (push) I wonder what’s really at its core, what’s in it for them, that is truly new and not part of the existing NHS Choices and Patient online offering?

What kind of personalised tailoring do today’s NHS Choices Ts&Cs sign users up to?

“Any information provided, or any information the NHS.uk site may infer from it, are used to provide content and information to your account pages or, if you choose to, by email.  Users may also be invited to take part in surveys if signed up for emails.

“You will have an option to submit personal information, including postcode, age, date of birth, phone number, email address, mobile phone number. In addition you may submit information about your diet and lifestyle, including drinking or exercise habits.”

“Additionally, you may submit health information, including your height and weight, or declare your interest in one or more health goals, conditions or treatments. “

“With your permission, academic institutions may occasionally use our data in relevant studies. In these instances, we shall inform you in advance and you will have the choice to opt out of the study. The information that is used will be made anonymous and will be confidential.”

Today’s NHS Choices terms and conditions say that “we shall inform you in advance and you will have the choice to opt out of the study.”

If that happens already and the NHS is honest about its intent to give patients that opt out right whether to take part in studies using data gathered from registered users of NHS Choices, why is it failing to do so for the 700,000 objections to secondary use of personal data via HSCIC?

If the future system is all about personal choice NIB should perhaps start by enforcing action over the choice the public may have already made in the past.

Past lessons learned – platforms and HealthSpace

In the past, the previous NHS personal platform, HealthSpace, came in for some fairly straightforward criticism including that it offered too little functionality.

The Devil’s in the Detail remarks are as relevant today on what users want as they were in 2010. It looked at the then available Summary Care Record (prescriptions allergies and reactions) and the web platform HealthSpace which tried to create a way for users to access it.

Past questions from Healthspace remain unanswered for today’s care.data or indeed the future nhs.uk data: What happens if there is a mistake in the record and the patient wants it deleted? How will access be given to third party carers/users on behalf of individuals without capacity to consent to their records access?

Reasons given by non-users of HealthSpace included lack of interest in managing their health in this way, a perception that health information was the realm of health professionals and lack of interest or confidence in using IT.

“In summary, these findings show that ‘self management’ is a much more complex, dynamic, and socially embedded activity than original policy documents and technical specifications appear to have assumed.”

What lessons have been learned? People today are still questioning the value of a centrally imposed system. Are they being listened to?

Digital Health reported that Maurice Smith, GP and governing body member for Liverpool CCG, speaking in a session on self-care platforms at the King’s Fund event he said that driving people towards one national hub for online services was not an option he would prefer and that he had no objection to a national portal, “but if you try drive everybody to a national portal and expect everybody to be happy with that I think you will be disappointed.”

How will the past problems that hit Healthspace be avoided for the future?

How will the powers-at-be avoid repeating the same problems for its ongoing roll out of care.data and future projects? I have asked this same question to NHS England/NIB leaders three times in the last year and it remains unanswered.

How will you tell patients in advance of any future changes who will access their data records behind the scenes, for what purpose, to future proof any programmes that plan to use the data?

One of the Healthspace 2010 concerns was: “Efforts of local teams to find creative new uses for the SCR sat in uneasy tension with implicit or explicit allegations of ‘scope creep’.”

Any programme using records can’t ethically sign users up to one thing and change it later without informing them before the change. Who will pay for that and how will it be done? care.data pilots, I’d want that answered before starting pilot communications.

As an example of changes to ‘what’ or content scope screep, future plans will see ‘social care flags added’ to the SCR record, states p.17 of the NIB 2020 timeline. What’s the ‘discovery for the use of genomic data complete’ about on p.11?  Scope creep of ‘who’ will access records, is very current. Recent changes allow pharmacists to access the SCR yet the change went by with little public discussion. Will they in future see social care flags or mental health data under their SCR access? Do I trust the chemist as I trust a GP?

Changes without adequate public consultation and communication cause surprises. Bad idea. Sir Nick Partridge said ensuring ‘no surprises’ is key to citizens’ trust after the audit of HES/SUS data uses. He is right.

The core at the heart of this nhs.uk plan is that it needs to be used by people, and enough people to make the investment vs cost worthwhile. That is what Healthspace failed to achieve.

The change you want to see doesn’t address the needs of the user as a change issue. (slide 4) This is all imposed change. Not user need-driven change.

Dear NIB, done this way seems to ignore learning from Healthspace. The evidence shown is self-referring to Dr. Foster and NHS Choices. The only other two listed are from Wisconsin and the Netherlands, hardly comparable models of UK lifestyle or healthcare systems.

What is really behind the new front door of the nhs.uk platform?

The future nhs.uk looks very much as though it seeks to provide a central front door to data access, in effect an expanded Summary Care Record (GP and secondary care records) – all medical records for direct care – together with a way for users to add their own wider user data.

Will nhs.uk also allow individuals to share their data with digital service providers of other kinds through the nhs.uk platform and apps? Will their data be mined to offer a personalised front door of tailored information and service nudges? Will patients be profiled to know their health needs, use and costs?

If yes, then who will be doing the mining and who will be using that data for what purposes?

If not, then what value will this service offer if it is not personal?

What will drive the need to log on to another new platform, compared with using the existing services of patient online today to access our health records, access GPs via video tools, and without any log-in requirement, browse similar content of information and nudges towards local services offered via NHS Choices today?

If this is core to the future of our “patient experience” of the NHS the public should be given the full and transparent facts  to understand where’s the public benefit and the business case for nhs.uk, and what lies behind the change expected via online GP consultations.

This NIB programme is building the foundation of the NHS offering for the next ten years. What kind of NHS are the NIB and NHS England planning for our children and our retirement through their current digital designs?

If the significant difference behind the new offering for nhs.uk platform is going to be the key change from what HealthSpace offered and separate from what patient online already offers it appears to be around managing cost and payments, not delivering any better user service.

Managing more of our payments with pharmacies and personalised budgets would reflect the talk of a push towards patient-responsible-self-management  direction of travel for the NHS as a whole.

More use of personal budgets is after all what Simon Stevens called a “radical new option” and we would expect to see “wider scale rollout of successful projects is envisaged from 2016-17″.

When the system will have finely drawn profiles of its users, will it have any effect for individuals in our universal risk-shared system? Will a wider roll out of personalised budgets mean more choice or could it start to mirror a private insurance system in which a detailed user profile would determine your level of risk and personal budget once reached, mean no more service?

What I’d like to see and why

To date, transparency has a poor track record on sharing central IT/change programme business plans.  While saying one thing, another happens in practice. Can that be changed? Why all the effort on NHS Citizen and ‘listening’, if the public is not to be engaged in ‘grown up debate‘ to understand the single biggest driver of planned service changes today: cost.

It’s at best patronising in the extreme, to prevent the public from seeing plans which spend public money.

We risk a wasteful, wearing repeat of the past top down failure of an imposed NPfIT-style HealthSpace, spending public money on a project which purports to be designed to save it.

To understand the practical future we can look back to avoid what didn’t work and compare with current plans. I’d suggest they should spell out very clearly what were the failures of Healthspace, and why is nhs.uk different.

If the site will offer an additional new pathway to access services than we already have, it will cost more, not less. If it has genuine expected cost reduction compared with today, where precisely will it come from?

I’d suggest you publish the detailed business plan for the nhs.uk platform and have the debate up front. Not only the headline numbers towards the end of these slides, but where and how it fits together in the big picture of Stevens’ “radical new option”.  This is public money and you *need* the public on side for it to work.

Publish the business cases for the NIB plans before the public engagement meet ups, because otherwise what facts will opinion be based on?

What discussion can be of value without them, when we are continually told by leadership those very  details are at the crux of needed change – the affordability of the future of the UK health and care system?

Now, as with past projects, The Devil’s in the Detail.

***

NIB detail on nhs.uk and other concepts: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/437067/nib-delivering.pdf

The Devil’s in the Detail: Final report of the independent evaluation of the Summary Care Record and HealthSpace programmes 2010

#caredata, care.data, change management, consent, NHS, NHS England

Reputational risk. Is NHS England playing a game of public confidence?

“By when will NHS England commit to respect the 700,000 objections  [1] to secondary data sharing already logged* but not enacted?” [gathered from objections to secondary uses in the care.data rollout, Feb 2014*]

Until then, can organisations continue to use health data held by HSCIC for secondary purposes, ethically and legally, or are they placing themselves at reputational risk?

If HSCIC continues to share, what harm may it do to public confidence in data sharing in the NHS?

I should have asked this explicitly of the National Information Board (NIB) June 17th board meeting [2], that rode in for the last 3 hours of the two day Digital Health and Care Congress at the King’s Fund.

But I chose to mention it only in passing, since I assumed it is already being worked on and a public communication will follow very soon. I had lots of other constructive things I wanted to hear in the time planned for ‘public discussion’.

Since then it’s been niggling at me that I should have asked more directly, as it dawned on me watching the meeting recording and more importantly when reading the NIB papers [3], it’s not otherwise mentioned. And there was no group discussion anyway.

Mark Davies. Director at UK Department of Health talked in fairly jargon-free language about transparency. [01:00] I could have asked him when we will see more of it in practice?

Importantly, he said on building and sustaining public trust, “if we do not secure public trust in the way that we collect store and use their personal confidential data, then pretty much everything we do today will not be a success.”

So why does the talk of securing trust seem at odds with the reality?

Evidence of Public Voice on Opt Out

Is the lack of action based on uncertainty over what to do?

Mark Davies also said “we have only a sense” and we don’t have “a really solid evidence base” of what the public want. He said, “people feel slightly uncomfortable about data being used for commercial gain.” Which he felt was “awkward” as commercial companies included pharma working for public good.

If he has not done so already, though I am sure he will have, he could read the NHS England own care.data listening feedback. People were strongly against commercial exploitation of data. Many were livid about its use. [see other care.data events] Not ‘slightly uncomfortable.’  And they were able to make a clear distinction between uses by commercial companies they felt in the public interest, such as bona fide pharma research and the differences with consumer market research, even if by the same company.  Risk stratification and commissioning does not need, and should not have according to the Caldicott Review [8], fully identifiable individual level data sharing.

Uses are actually not so hard to differentiate. In fact, it’s exactly what people want. To have the choice to have their data used only for direct care  or to choose to permit sharing between different users, permitting say, bona fide research.  Or at minimum, possible to exclude commercially exploitative uses and reuse. To enable this would enable more data sharing with confidence.

I’d also suggest there is a significant evidence base gathered in the data trust deficit work from the Royal Statistical Society, a poll on privacy for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and work done for the ADRN/ESRC. I’m sure he and the NIB are aware of these projects, and Mark Davies said himself more is currently being done with the Nuffield Trust.

Work with almost 3,000 young for the Royal Academy of Engineering people confirmed what those interested in privacy know, but is the opposite of what is often said about young people and privacy – they care and want control:

youngpeople_privacy

NHS England has itself further said it has held ‘over 180’ listening events in 2014 and feedback was consistent with public letters to papers, radio phone-ins and news reports in spring 2014.

Don’t give raw data out, exclude access to commercial companies not working in the public interest, exclude non-bona fide research use and re-use licenses, define the future purposes, improve legal protection including the opt out and provide transparency to trust.

How much more evidence does anyone need to have of public understanding and feeling, or is it simply that NHS England and the DH don’t like the answers given? Listening does not equal heard.

Here’s some of NHS England’s own slides – [4] points included a common demand from the public to give the opt out legal status:

legal

 

Opt out needs legal status

Paul Bate talked about missing pieces of understanding on secondary uses, for [56:00] [3] “Commissioners, researchers, all the different regulators.” He gave an update, which assumed secondary use of data as the norm.

But he missed out any mention of the perceived cost of loss of confidentiality, and loss of confidence since the failure to respect the 9nu4 objections made in the 2014 aborted care.data rollout. That’s not even mentioning that so many did not even recall getting a leaflet, so those 700,00K came from the most informed.

When the public sees their opt out is not respected they lose trust in the whole system of data sharing. Whether for direct care, for use by an NHS organisation, or by any one of the many organisations vying to manage their digital health interaction and interventions. If someone has been told data will not be shared with third parties and it is, why would they trust any other governance will be honoured?

By looking back on the leadership pre- care.data flawed thinking ‘no one who uses a public service should be allowed to opt out of sharing their records, nor can people rely on their record being anonymised’ and its resulting disastrous attempt to rollout without communication and then a second at fair processing, lessons learned should inform future projects. That includes care.data mark 2. This < is simply daft.

“You can object and your data will not be extracted and you can make no contribution to society,“ Mr. Kelsey answered a critic on twitter in 2014 and revealed that his thinking really hasn’t changed very much, even if he has been forced to make concessions. I should have said at #kfdigital15, ignoring what the public wants is not your call to make.

What legal changes will be made that back up the verbal guarantees given since February? If none are forthcoming, then were the statements made to Parliament untrue? 

“people should be able to opt out from having their anonymised data used for the purposes of scientific research.” [Hunt, 2014]

We are yet to see this legal change and to date, the only publicly stated choice is only for identifiable data, not all data for secondary purposes including anonymous, as offered by the Minister in February 2014, and David Cameron in 2010.

If Mark Davies is being honest about how important he feels trust is to data sharing, implementing the objection should be a) prioritised and b) given legal footing.optout_ppt

 

Risks and benefits : need for a new social contract on Data

Simon Denegri recently wrote [5] he believes there are “probably five years to sort out a new social contract on data in the UK.”

I’d suggest less, if high profile data based projects or breaches irreparably damage public trust first, whether in the NHS or consumer world. The public will choose to share increasingly less.

But the public cannot afford to lose the social benefits that those projects may bring to the people who need them.

Big projects, such as care.data, cannot afford for everyone’s sake to continue to repeatedly set off and crash.

Smaller projects, those planned and in progress by each organisation and attendee at the King’s Fund event, cannot afford for those national mistakes to damage the trust the public may otherwise hold in the projects at local level.

I heard care.data mentioned five different times over the two-day event  in different projects as having harmed the project through trust or delays. We even heard examples of companies in Scotland going bust due to rollouts with slowed data access and austerity.

Individuals cannot afford for their reputation to be harmed through association, or by using data in ways the public finds unreasonable and get splashed across the front page of the Telegraph.

Clarity is needed for everyone using data well whether for direct care with implied consent, or secondary uses without it, and it is in the public interest to safeguard access to that data.

A new social contract on data would be good all round.

Reputational Risk

The June 6th story of the 700,000 unrespected opt outs has been and gone. But the issue has not.

Can organisations continue to use that data ethically and legally knowing it is explicitly without consent?

“When will those objections be implemented?” should be a question that organisations across the country are asking – if reputational risk is a factor in any datasharing decision making – in addition to the fundamental ethical principle: can we continue to use the data from an individual from whom we know consent was not freely given and was actively withheld?

What of projects that use HES or hospital secondary care sites’ submitted data and rely on the HSCIC POM mechanisms? How do those audits or other projects take HES secondary objections into account?

Sir Nick Partridge said in the April 2014 HSCIC HES/SUS audit there should be ‘no surprises’ in future.

That future is now. What has NHS England done since to improve?

“Consumer confidence appears to be fragile and there are concerns that future changes in how data may be collected and used (such as more passive collection via the Internet of Things) could test how far consumers are willing to continue to provide data.” [CMA Consumer report] [6]

The problem exists across both state and consumer data sharing. It is not a matter of if, but when, these surprises are revealed to the public with unpredictable degrees of surprise and revulsion, resulting in more objection to sharing for any purposes at all.

The solutions exist: meaningful transparency, excluding commercial purposes which appear exploitative, consensual choices, and no surprises. Shape communications processes by building-in future change to today’s programmes to future proof trust.

Future-proofing does not mean making a purpose and use of data so vague as to be all encompassing – exactly what the public has said at care.data listening events they do not want and will not find sufficient to trust nor I would argue, would it meet legally adequate fair processing – it must build and budget for mechanisms into every plan today, to inform patients of the future changes to use or users of data already gathered, and offer them a new choice to object or consent. And they should have a way to know who used what.

The GP who asked the first of the only three questions that were possible in 10 minutes Q&A from the room, had taken away the same as I had: the year 2020 is far too late as a public engagement goal. There must be much stronger emphasis on it now. And it is actually very simple. Do what the public has already asked for.

The overriding lesson must be, the person behind the data must come first. If they object to data being used, that must be respected.

It starts with fixing the opt outs. That must happen. And now.

Public confidence is not a game [7]. Reputational risk is not something organisations should be forced to gamble with to continue their use of data and potential benefits of data sharing.

If NHS England, the NIB or Department of Health know how and when it will be fixed they should say so. If they don’t, they better have a darn good reason why and tell us that too.

‘No surprises’, said Nick Partridge.

The question decision makers must address for data management is, do they continue to be part of the problem or offer part of the solution?

******

References:

[1]The Telegraph, June 6th 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11655777/Nearly-1million-patients-could-be-having-confidential-data-shared-against-their-wishes.html

[2]  June 17th NIB meeting http://www.dh-national-information-board.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/180408

[3] NIB papers / workstream documentation https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/plans-to-improve-digital-services-for-the-health-and-care-sector

[4] care.data listening feedback http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/care-data-presentation.pdf

[5] Simon Denegri’s blog http://simondenegri.com/2015/06/18/is-public-involvement-in-uk-health-research-a-danger-to-itself/

[6] CMA findings on commercial use of consumer data https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-publishes-findings-on-the-commercial-use-of-consumer-data

[7] Data trust deficit New research finds data trust deficit with lessons for policymakers: http://www.statslife.org.uk/news/1672-new-rss-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers

[8] Caldicott review: information governance in the health and care system

#caredata, care.data, choice, commercial, health, HES, NHS England, privacy, transparency, trust

The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [1] care.data, Concerns and the cost of Consent

They say ‘every little helps’.  care.data needs every little it can get.

In my new lay member role on the ADRN panel, I read submissions for research requests for any ethical concerns that may be reflected in wider public opinion.

The driving force for sharing administrative data research is non-commercial, with benefits to be gained for the public good.

So how do we quantify the public good, and ‘in the public interest’?

Is there alignment between the ideology of government, the drivers of policy [for health, such as the commissioning body NHS England] and the citizens of the country on what constitutes ‘the public good’?

There is public good to be gained for example, from social and health data seen as a knowledge base,  by using it using in ‘bona fide’ research, often through linking with other data to broaden insights.

Insight that might result in improving medicines, health applications, and services. Social benefits that should help improve lives, to benefit society.

Although social benefits may be less tangible, they are no harder for the public to grasp than the economic. And often a no brainer as long as confidentiality and personal control are not disregarded.

When it comes to money making from our data the public is less happy. The economic value of data raises more questions on use.

There is economic benefit to extract from data as a knowledge base to inform decision making, being cost efficient and investing wisely. Saving money.

And there is measurable economic public good in terms of income tax from individuals and corporations who by using the data make a profit, using data as a basis from which to create tools or other knowledge. Making money for the public good through indirect sales.

Then there is economic benefit from data trading as a commodity. Direct sales.

In all of these considerations, how does what the public feels and their range of opinions, get taken into account in the public good cost and benefit accounting?

Do we have a consistent and developed understanding of ‘the public interest’ and how it is shifting to fit public expectation and use?

Public concern

“The importance of building and maintaining trust and confidence among all stakeholder groups concerned – including researchers, institutions, ethical review boards and research participants – as a basis for effective data sharing cannot be overstated.”  [Wellcome blog, April 2015]

If something is jeopardising that public good it is in the public interest to say so, and for the right reasons.

The loss of public trust in data sharing measured by public feeling in 2014 is a threat to data used in the public interest, so what are we doing to fix it and are care.data lessons being learned?

The three biggest concerns voiced by the public at care.data listening events[1] were repeatedly about commercial companies’ use, and re-use of data, third parties accessing data for unknown purposes and the resultant loss of confidentiality.

 Question from Leicester: “Are we saying there will be only clinical use of the data – no marketing, no insurance, no profit making? This is our data.” [NHS Open Day, June 2014]

While people are happy for the state to use their data without active consent for bona fide research, they are not for commercial purposes.

Much of the debate and upset caused by the revelations of how our hospital episode statistics were managed in the past centred on the sense of loss of ownership. And with that, the inability to consent to who uses it. This despite acknowledgment that patients own their data.

Significant concern centres on use of the information gleaned from data that patients consider commercial exploitation. For use segmenting the insurance markets. For consumer market research. Using data for individual targeting. And its utter lack of governance.

There is also concern about data being directly sold or exchanged as a commodity.

These concerns were raised meeting after meeting in the 2014 care.data “listening process.”

To read in Private Eye that commercially sensitive projects were discussed in various meetings between NHS England and supermarket giant Tesco throughout 2014 [2] by the Patients and Information Director, responsible for care.data, is therefore all the more surprising.

They may of course be quite unrelated.

But when transparency is the mother of trust, it’s perhaps a surprising liason while ‘listening’ to care.data concerns.

It could appear that greater confidentiality was given to the sensitivity of commercial meetings than citizens’ sensitive data.

Consent package deals may be a costly mistake

People are much more aware since care.data a year ago, that unknown third parties may access data without our consent.

Consent around secondary NHS data sharing and in wider fora is no longer an inconvenient ethical dilemma best left on the shelf, as it has been for the last 25 years in secondary use, dusted off in the care.data crisis. [3]

Consent is front and centre in the latest EU data protection discussions [4] in which consent may become a requirement for all research purposes.

How that may affect social science and health research use, its pros and cons [5] remain to be seen.

However, in principle consent has always been required and good practice in applied medicine, despite the caveat for data used in medical research. As a general rule: “An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it”. But this is consent for your care. Assuming that information is shared when looking after you, for direct care, during medical treatment itself is not causes concerns.

The idea is becoming increasingly assumed in discussions I have heard, [at CCG and other public meetings] that because patients have given implied consent to sharing their information for their care, that the same data may be shared for other purposes. It is not, and it is those secondary purposes that the public has asked at care.data events, to see split up, and differentiated.

Research uses are secondary uses, and those purposes cannot ethically be assumed. However, legal gateways, access to that data which makes it possible to uses for clearly defined secondary purposes by law, may make that data sharing legal.

That legal assumption, for the majority of people polls and dialogue show [though not for everyone 6b], comes  a degree of automatic support for bona fide research in the public interest. But it’s not a blanket for all secondary uses by any means, and it is this blanket assumption which has damaged trust.

So if data use in research assumes consent, and any panel is the proxy for personal decision making, the panel must consider the public voice and public interest in its decision making.

So what does the public want?

In those cases where there is no practicable alternative [to consent], there is still pressure to respect patient privacy and to meet reasonable expectations regarding use. The stated ambition of the CAG, for example, is to only advise disclosure in those circumstances where there is reason to think patients would agree it to be reasonable.

Whether active not implied consent does or does not become a requirement for research purposes without differentiation between kinds, the public already has different expectations and trust around different users.

The biggest challenge for championing the benefits of research in the public good, may be to avoid being lumped in with commercial marketing research for private profit.

The latter’s misuse of data is an underlying cause of the mistrust now around data sharing [6]. It’s been a high price to pay for public health research and others delayed since the Partridge audit.

Consent package deals mean that the public cannot choose how data are used in what kids of research and if not happy with one kind, may refuse permission for the other.

By denying any differentiation between direct, indirect, economic and social vale derived from data uses, the public may choose to deny all researchers access to their all personal data.

That may be costly to the public good, for public health and in broader research.

A public good which takes profit into account for private companies and the state, must not be at the expense of public feeling, reasonable expectations and ethical good practice.

A state which allows profit for private companies to harm the perception of  good practice by research in the public interest has lost its principles and priorities. And lost sight of the public interest.

Understanding if the public, the research community and government have differing views on what role economic value plays in the public good matters.

It matters when we discuss how we should best protect and approach it moving towards a changing EU legal framework.

“If the law relating to health research is to be better harmonised through the passing of a Regulation (rather than the existing Directive 95/46/EC), then we need a much better developed understanding of ‘the public interest’ than is currently offered by law.”  [M Taylor, “Information Governance as a Force for Good? Lessons to be Learnt from Care.data”, (2014) 11:1 SCRIPTed 1]

In the words of Dr Mark Taylor, “we need to do this better.”

How? I took a look at some of this in more detail:

Part two: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [2] Pay-for-privacy and Defining Purposes.

Part three: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [3] The value of public voice.

Update note: A version of these three posts was combined into an opinion piece – care.data: ‘The Value of Data versus the Public Interest?’ published on StatsLife on June 3rd 2015.

****

image via Tesco media

 

[1] care.data listening event questions: https://jenpersson.com/pathfinder/

[2] Private Eye – on Tesco / NHS England commercial meetings https://twitter.com/medConfidential/status/593819474807148546

[3] HSCIC audit and programme for change www.hscic.gov.uk/article/4780/HSCIC-learns-lessons-of-the-past-with-immediate-programme-for-change

[4] EU data protection discussion http://www.digitalhealth.net/news/EHI/9934/eu-ministers-back-data-privacy-changes

[5] Joint statement on EU Data Protection proposals http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@policy_communications/documents/web_document/WTP055584.pdf

[6] Ipsos MORI research with the Royal Statistical Society into the Trust deficit with lessons for policy makers https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3422/New-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers.aspx

[6b] The ‘Dialogue on Data’ Ipsos MORI research 2014 https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1652/Dialogue-on-Data.aspx – commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to conduct a public dialogue examining the public’s views on using linked administrative data for research purposes,

[7] AdExchanger Janaury 2015 http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/the-newest-asset-class-data/

[8] Tesco clubcard data sale https://jenpersson.com/public_data_in_private_hands/  / Computing 14.01.2015 – article by Sooraj Shah: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2390197/what-does-tescos-sale-of-dunnhumby-mean-for-its-data-strategy

[9] Direct Marketing 2013 http://www.dmnews.com/tesco-every-little-bit-of-customer-data-helps/article/317823/

[10] Personalisation in health data plans http://www.england.nhs.uk/iscg/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/01/ISCG-Paper-Ref-ISCG-009-002-Adult-Social-Care-Informatics.pdf

[11] Tim Kelsey Keynote speech at Strata November 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HCbXsC4z8

[12] Forbes: Illumina CEO on the US$20bn DNA market http://www.forbes.com/sites/luketimmerman/2015/04/29/qa-with-jay-flatley-ceo-of-illumina-the-genomics-company-pursuing-a-20b-market/

 

#caredata, care.data, genomics, human rights, NHS England, privacy, transparency

The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [2] Pay-for-privacy, defining purposes

Differentiation. Telling customers apart and grouping them by similarities is what commercial data managers want.

It enables them to target customers with advertising and sales promotion most effectively. They segment the market into chunks and treat one group differently from another.

They use market research data, our loyalty card data, to get that detailed information about customers, and decide how to target each group for what purposes.

As the EU states debate how research data should be used and how individuals should be both enabled and protected through it, they might consider separating research purposes by type.

While people are happy for the state to use their data without active consent for bona fide research, they are not for commercial consumer research purposes. [ref part 1].

Separating consumer and commercial market research from the definition of research purposes for the public good by the state, could be key to rebuilding people’s trust in government data use.

Having separate purposes would permit separate consent and control procedures to govern them.

But what role will profit make in the state’s definition of ‘in the public interest’ – is it in the public interest if the UK plc makes money from its citizens? and how far along any gauge of public feeling will a government be prepared to go to push making money for the UK plc at our own personal cost?

Pay-for-privacy?

In January this year, the Executive Vice President at Dunnhumby, Nishat Mehta, wrote in this article [7], about how he sees the future of data sharing between consumers and commercial traders:

“Imagine a world where data and services that are currently free had a price tag. You could choose to use Google or Facebook freely if you allowed them to monetize your expressed data through third-party advertisers […]. Alternatively, you could choose to pay a fair price for these services, but use of the data would be forbidden or limited to internal purposes.”

He too, talked about health data. Specifically about its value when accurate expressed and consensual:

“As consumers create and own even more data from health and fitness wearables, connected devices and offline social interactions, market dynamics would set the fair price that would compel customers to share that data. The data is more accurate, and therefore valuable, because it is expressed, rather than inferred, unable to be collected any other way and comes with clear permission from the user for its use.”

What his pay-for-privacy model appears to have forgotten, is that this future consensual sharing is based on the understanding that privacy has a monetary value. And that depends on understanding the status quo.

It is based on the individual realising that there is money made from their personal data by third parties today, and that there is a choice.

The extent of this commercial sharing and re-selling will be a surprise to most loyalty card holders.

“For years, market research firms and retailers have used loyalty cards to offer money back schemes or discounts in return for customer data.”

However despite being signed up for years, I believe most in the public are unaware of the implied deal. It may be in the small print. But everyone knows that few read it, in the rush to sign up to save money.

Most shoppers believe the supermarket is buying our loyalty. We return to spend more cash because of the points. Points mean prizes, petrol coupons, or pounds off.

We don’t realise our personal identity and habits are being invisibly analysed to the nth degree and sold by supermarkets as part of those sweet deals.

But is pay-for-privacy discriminatory? By creating the freedom to choose privacy as a pay-for option, it excludes those who cannot afford it.

Privacy should be seen as a human right, not as a pay-only privilege.

Today we use free services online but our data is used behind the scenes to target sales and ads often with no choice and without our awareness.

Today we can choose to opt in to loyalty schemes and trade our personal data for points and with it we accept marketing emails, and flyers through the door, and unwanted calls in our private time.

The free option is to never sign up at all, but by doing so customers pay a premium by not getting the vouchers and discounts.  Or trading convenience of online shopping.

There is a personal cost in all three cases, albeit in a rather opaque trade off.

 

Does the consumer really benefit in any of these scenarios or does the commercial company get a better deal?

In the sustainable future, only a consensual system based on understanding and trust will work well. That’s assuming by well, we mean organisations wish to prevent PR disasters and practical disruption as resulted for example to NHS data in the last year, through care.data.

For some people the personal cost to the infringement of privacy by commercial firms is great. Others care less. But once informed, there is a choice on offer even today to pay for privacy from commercial business, whether one pays the price by paying a premium for goods if not signed up for loyalty schemes or paying with our privacy.

In future we may see a more direct pay-for-privacy offering along  the lines of Nishat Mehta.

And if so, citizens will be asking ever more about how their data is used in all sorts of places beyond the supermarket.

So how can the state profit from the economic value of our data but not exploit citizens?

‘Every little bit of data’ may help consumer marketing companies.  Gaining it or using it in ways which are unethical and knowingly continue bad practices won’t win back consumers and citizens’ trust.

And whether it is a commercial consumer company or the state, people feel exploited when their information is used to make money without their knowledge and for purposes with which they disagree.

Consumer commercial use and use in bona fide research are separate in the average citizen’s mind and understood in theory.

Achieving differentiation in practice in the definition of research purposes could be key to rebuilding consumers’ trust.

And that would be valid for all their data, not only what data protection labels as ‘personal’. For the average citizen, all data about them is personal.

Separating in practice how consumer businesses are using data about customers to the benefit of company profits, how the benefits are shared on an individual basis in terms of a trade in our privacy, and how bona fide public research benefits us all, would be beneficial to win continued access to our data.

Citizens need and want to be offered paths to see how our data are used in ways which are transparent and easy to access.

Cutting away purposes which appear exploitative from purposes in the public interest could benefit commerce, industry and science.

By reducing the private cost to individuals of the loss of control and privacy of our data, citizens will be more willing to share.

That will create more opportunity for data to be used in the public interest, which will increase the public good; both economic and social which the government hopes to see expand.

And that could mean a happy ending for everyone.

The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good?  They need not be mutually exclusive. But if one exploits the other, it has the potential to continue be corrosive. The UK plc cannot continue to assume its subjects are willing creators and repositories of information to be used for making money. [ref 1] To do so has lost trust in all uses, not only those in which citizens felt exploited.[6]

The economic value of data used in science and health, whether to individual app creators, big business or the commissioning state in planning and purchasing is clear. Perhaps not quantified or often discussed in the public domain perhaps, but it clearly exists.

Those uses can co-exist with good practices to help people understand what they are signed up to.

By defining ‘research purposes’, by making how data are used transparent, and by giving real choice in practice to consent to differentiated data for secondary uses, both commercial and state will secure their long term access to data.

Privacy, consent and separation of purposes will be wise investments for its growth across commercial and state sectors.

Let’s hope they are part of the coming ‘long-term economic plan’.

****

Related to this:

Part one: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [1] Concerns and the cost of Consent

Part two: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [2] Pay-for-privacy and Defining Purposes.

Part three: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [3] The value of public voice.

****

image via Tesco media

[6] Ipsos MORI research with the Royal Statistical Society into the Trust deficit with lessons for policy makers https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3422/New-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers.aspx

[7] AdExchanger Janaury 2015 http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/the-newest-asset-class-data/

[8] Tesco clubcard data sale https://jenpersson.com/public_data_in_private_hands/  / Computing 14.01.2015 – article by Sooraj Shah: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2390197/what-does-tescos-sale-of-dunnhumby-mean-for-its-data-strategy

[9] Direct Marketing 2013 http://www.dmnews.com/tesco-every-little-bit-of-customer-data-helps/article/317823/

 

care.data, commercial, human rights, NHS England

The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [3] The value of public voice.

Demonstrable value of public research to the public good, while abstract, is a concept quite clearly understood.

Demonstrating the economic value of data for private consumer companies like major supermarkets is even easier to understand.

What is less obvious is the harm that the commercial misuse of data can do to the public’s perception of all research for the public good.[6]

The personal cost of consumer data exploitation, whether through the loss of, or through paid-for privacy, must be limited to reduce the perceived personal cost of the public good.

By reducing the personal cost, we increase the value of the perceived public benefit of sharing and overall public good.

The public good may mean many things: benefits from public health research like understanding how disease travels, or good financial planning, derived from knowing what needs communities have and what services to provide.

By reducing the private cost to individuals of the loss of control and privacy of our data, citizens will be more willing to share.

It will create more opportunity for data to be used in the public interest, for both economic and social gain.

As I outlined in the previous linked blog posts, consent [part 1] and privacy [part 2] would be wise investments for its growth.

So how are consumer businesses and the state taking this into account?

Where is the dialogue we need to keep expectations and practices aligned in a changing environment and legal framework?

Personalisation: the economic value of data for companies

Any projects under discussion or in progress without adequate public consultation and real involvement, that ignore public voice,  risk their own success and with it the public good they should create.

The same is true for commercial projects.  For example, back to Tesco.

Whether the clubcard data management and processing [8] is directly or indirectly connected to Tesco, its customer data are important to the supermarket chain and are valuable.

Former Tesco executive, spoke about that value in a 2013 interview:

“These are slow-growing industries,” Leahy said. “The difference was in the use of data, in the way Tesco learned about its customers. And from that, everything flowed.”[9]

By knowing who, how and when citizens shop, it allows them to target the sales offering to make people buy more or differently. The so-called ‘nudge’ moving citizens in the direction the company wants.

He explained how, through the Clubcard loyalty program, the supermarket was able to transition from mass marketing to personalized marketing and that it works in other areas too:

“You can already see in some areas where customers are content to be priced as customers: risk pricing with insurance and so on.

“It makes a lot of sense in health pricing, but there will be certain social policy restriction in terms of fair access and so on.”

NHS patient data and commercial supermarket data may be coming closer in their use than we might think.

Not only closer in their similar desire to move towards personalisation [10] but for similar reasons, in the desire to use all the data to know all about people as health consumers and from that, to plan and purchase, best and cheapest…”in reducing overall cost.”

It is worth thinking about in an economy driven by ideological austerity, how reducing overall cost will be applied, by cutting services or reducing to whom services are offered.

What ‘nudge’ may be applied through NHS policies, to move citizens in the direction the drivers in government or civil service want to see?

What will push those who can afford it, into private care and out of those who the state has to spend money on, if they are prepared to spend their own, for example.

What is the data that citizens provide through schemes like care.data designed to achieve?

“Demonstrating The Actual Economic Value of Data”

Tim Kelsey, speaking at Strata in 2013 [11] talked about: “Demonstrating The Actual Economic Value of Data”. Our NHS data are valuable in both economic and social terms.

[From 12:17] “It will help put the UK on the map in terms of genomic research. The PM has already committed to the UK developing 100K gene sequences very rapidly. But those sequences on their own will have very limited value without the reference data that lies out there in the real world of the NHS, the data we’ll start making available form next June […]. The name of the programme by the way is care dot data.”

The long since delayed care.data programme plans to provide medical records for secondary use, as reference data for the 100K genomics programme. The programme has the intent to “create a lasting legacy for patients, the NHS and the UK economy.”

With consent.

When the CEO of Illumina talks about winning a US $20bn market [12] perhaps it also sounds economically appealing for the UK plc and the austerity-lean NHS. Illumina is the company which won the contract for the Genomics England project sequencing of course.

“The notion here is that it’s really a precursor to understand the health economics of why sequencing helps improve healthcare, both in quality of outcome, and in reducing overall cost. Presuming we meet the objectives of this three-year study–and it’s truly a pilot–then the program will expand substantially and sequence many more people in the U.K.” [Jay Flatley, CEO]

The idea of it being a precursor leaves me asking, to what?
“Will expand substantially” to whom?

As more and more becomes possible in science, there will be an ever greater need for understanding between how and why we should advance medicine, and how to protect human dignity. Because it becomes possible may not always mean it should be done.

Article 21 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the application of biology and medicine, also says:  “The human body and its parts shall not, as such, give rise to financial gain.”

How close is profit making from DNA sequencing getting to that line?

These are questions that raise ethical questions and questions of social and economic value. The social legitimacy of these programmes will depend on trust. Trust based on no surprises.

Commercial market research or real research for the public good?

Meanwhile all consenting patients can in theory now choose to access their own record [GP online].  Mr Kelsey expressed hopes in 2013 that developers would use that to help patients:

“to mash it up with other data sources to get their local retailers to tell them about their purchasing habits [16:05] so they can mash it up with their health data.”

This despite the 67% of the public concerned around health data use by commercial companies.

So what were the commercially sensitive projects discussed by NHS England and Tesco throughout 2014? It would be interesting to know whether loyalty cards and mashing up our data was part of it – or did they discuss market segmentation, personalisation and health pricing? Will we hear the ‘Transparency Tsar‘ tell NHS citizens their engagement is valued, but in reality find the public is not involved?

To do so would risk another care.data style fiasco in other fields.

Who might any plans offer most value to – the customer, the company or the country plc? Will the Goliaths focus on short term profit or fair processing and future benefits?

In the long run, ignoring public voice won’t help the UK plc or the public interest.

A balanced and sustainable research future will not centre on a consumer pay-for-privacy basis, or commercial alliances, but on a robust ethical framework for the public good.

A public good which takes profit into account for private companies and the state, but not at the expense of public feeling and ethical good practice.

A public good which we can understand in terms of social, direct and indirect economic value.

While we strive for the economic and public good in scientific and medical advances we must also champion human dignity and values.

This dialogue needs to be continued.

“The commitment must be an ongoing one to continue to consult with people, to continue to work to optimally protect both privacy and the public interest in the uses of health data. We need to use data but we need to use it in ways that people have reason to accept. Use ‘in the public interest’ must respect individual privacy. The current law of data protection, with its opposed concepts of ‘privacy’ and ‘public interest’, does not do enough to recognise the dependencies or promote the synergies between these concepts.”

[M Taylor, “Information Governance as a Force for Good? Lessons to be Learnt from Care.data”, (2014) 11:1 SCRIPTed 1]

The public voice from care.data listening and beyond, could positively help shape the developing consensual model if given genuine adequate opportunity to do so in much needed dialogue.

As they say, every little helps.

****

Part one: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [1] Concerns and the cost of Consent

Part two: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [2] Pay-for-privacy and Defining Purposes.

Part three: The Economic Value of Data vs the Public Good? [3] The value of public voice.

****

[1] care.data listening event questions: https://jenpersson.com/pathfinder/

[2] Private Eye – on Tesco / NHS England commercial meetings https://twitter.com/medConfidential/status/593819474807148546

[3] HSCIC audit and programme for change www.hscic.gov.uk/article/4780/HSCIC-learns-lessons-of-the-past-with-immediate-programme-for-change

[4] EU data protection discussion http://www.digitalhealth.net/news/EHI/9934/eu-ministers-back-data-privacy-changes

[5] Joint statement on EU Data Protection proposals http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@policy_communications/documents/web_document/WTP055584.pdf

[6] Ipsos MORI research with the Royal Statistical Society into the Trust deficit with lessons for policy makers https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3422/New-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers.aspx

[7] AdExchanger Janaury 2015 http://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/the-newest-asset-class-data/

[8] Tesco clubcard data sale https://jenpersson.com/public_data_in_private_hands/  / Computing 14.01.2015 – article by Sooraj Shah: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2390197/what-does-tescos-sale-of-dunnhumby-mean-for-its-data-strategy

[9] Direct Marketing 2013 http://www.dmnews.com/tesco-every-little-bit-of-customer-data-helps/article/317823/

[10] Personalisation in health data plans http://www.england.nhs.uk/iscg/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/01/ISCG-Paper-Ref-ISCG-009-002-Adult-Social-Care-Informatics.pdf

[11] Tim Kelsey Keynote speech at Strata November 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8HCbXsC4z8

[12] Forbes: Illumina CEO on the US$20bn DNA market http://www.forbes.com/sites/luketimmerman/2015/04/29/qa-with-jay-flatley-ceo-of-illumina-the-genomics-company-pursuing-a-20b-market/

#caredata, care.data, engagement, HES, HSCIC, NHS England

Public data in private hands – should we know who manages our data?

When Tesco reportedly planned to sell off its data arm Dunnhumby [1] in January this year, it was a big deal.

Clubcard and the data which deliver customer insights – telling the company who we are, what we buy and how and when we shop using ‘billions of lines of code’ – will clearly continue to play a vital role in the supermarket customer relations strategy, whether its further processing and analysis is in-house or outsourced.

Assuming the business is sold,  clubcard shoppers might wonder who will then own their personal data, if not the shoppers themselves? Who is the data controller and processor? Who will inform customers of any change in its management?

“Dunnhumby has functioned as a standalone outfit in the past few years, offering customer information services to other retailers around the world, and could operate in a similar way for Tesco post-acquisition.”

I haven’t seen in the same media that the Dunnhumby speculation turned into a sale. At least not yet.

In contrast to the commercial company managing customer data for those who choose to take part, the company which manages the public’s data for many state owned services, was sold in December.

For an undisclosed value, Northgate Public Services [2] part of NIS was sold in Dec 2014 to Cinven, a European private equity firm.

What value I wondered does the company have of itself, or what value is viewed intrinsic to the data it works with – health screening, the National Joint Registry and more? It formerly managed HES data. What was part of the deal? Are the data part of the package?

Does the public have transparency of who manages our data?

Northgate has, according to their website, worked with public data, national and local government administrative data since 1969, including the development and management of the NNADC, “the mission critical solution providing continuous surveillance of the UK’s road network. The NADC is integrated with other databases, including the Police National Computer, and supports more than 3 million reads a day across the country.”

Northgate manages welfare support payments for many local authorities and the Welsh Assembly Government.

Data are entrusted to these third parties by the commercial or public body, largely without informing the public.

One could argue that a ‘named owner and processor’ is irrelevant to the public, which is probably true when things are done well.

But when things go wrong or are changed, should ‘the supplier’ of the data, or rather the public whose data it is, not be told?

If so, citizens would be informed and know who now accesses or even owns our public data that Northgate had in the past. Different firms will have different levels of experience, security measures and oversight of their practices than others. To understand how this works could be an opportunity for transparency to create trust.

Trust which is badly needed to ensure consensual data sharing continues.

So what will the future hold for these systems now owned by a private equity firm?

The buyer of Northgate Public Services, Cinven, has experience making a profit in healthcare.

We hear few details of plans available in the public domain about the NHS vision for data management and its future in public research.

We generally hear even less about the current management of the public’s data unless it is in a crisis, as front page stories will testify to over the last year. care.data has been in good company generating anger, with HMRC, the electoral register and other stories of legal, but unexpected data use of citizens’ data.

As a result we don’t know what of our public data is held by whom.

The latest news reported by the DM [3] will not be popular either given that 2/3rds of people asked in research into public trust over the governance of data [4] have concerns about public data in the hands of private firms:

“Controversial plans to give private companies such as Google responsibility for storing people’s private personal health data could be revived, a minister has suggested.”

Could there ever be privatisation plans afoot for HSCIC?

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next, whoever is making these decisions on our behalf after May 7th.

Certainly the roadmap, business plan, SIAM goals, and framework agreement [5] have given me cause to consider this before. The framework agreement specifically says change to its core functions or duties would require further primary legislation.”
[HSCIC DH framework agreement]

hscic_DH_framework

 

Changes to the HSCIC core remit, such as privatising the service, would require a change in legislation which would by default inform parliament.

Should there not be the same onus to inform the public whose data they are? Especially with “protection of patients being paramount”.  One could say protections should apply to our consumer data too.

Regardless of whether data are managed in-house or by another third party, by the state or commercial enterprise, if third parties can be outsourced or even sold, should consumers not always know who owns our data and of any changes in that guardianship?

Taking into account the public mistrust of commercial companies’ data management I would like to think so.

Further privatising the workings of our state data without involving the public in the process would certainly be a roadmap to driving public confidence on data sharing into the ground.

So too, when it comes to public trust, we might find when the commercial sale of consumer Clubcard data goes ahead, every little does not help.

****

Refs:

[1] Computing 14.01.2015 – article by Sooraj Shah: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2390197/what-does-tescos-sale-of-dunnhumby-mean-for-its-data-strategy

[2] Northgate sale to Cinven http://www.northgate-is.com/press-release-nps.html / http://www.northgatepublicservices.co.uk/

[3]  On the future of data handling http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3066758/Could-Google-look-NHS-data-Controversial-plans-revived-minister-says-technology-firms-best-placed-look-information-securely.html

[4] Ipsos MORI research with the Royal Statistical Society into the Trust deficit with lessons for policy makers https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3422/New-research-finds-data-trust-deficit-with-lessons-for-policymakers.aspx

[5] HSCIC DH Framework agreement http://www.hscic.gov.uk/media/13866/Framework-Agreement-between-the-Department-of-Health-and-the-HSCIC/pdf/Framework_Agreement_between_the_Department_of_Health_and_the_Health_and_Social_Care_Information_Cent.pdf