Breaking Barriers Without Breaking the Law: Information Governance in Wessex

The Information Governance (IG) landscape in Wessex continues to be a fascinating and challenging environment for those navigating their way through the subtle complexities of safe and secure legal data sharing. From obtaining lawful consent to creating accessible channels for information, the IG structure at every stage adheres to processes and procedures that make sure service providers, researchers and evaluators alike are obtaining the data they need; to develop and improve both primary and secondary healthcare.

However, it can be tricky.

You don’t have to be in an IG role for it to affect your programme or project. You may not be an IG expert when you start a piece of work, but may soon not be able to recall a time when you weren’t familiar with certain pathways and acronyms. 

IG is becoming more and more prevalent in day-to-day workloads as the need for patient data to underpin activities becomes greater than ever before. The benefits for the service users are paramount – as the NHS England website succinctly outlines, data analysis contributes towards:

• Reviewing and improving the quality of care provided
  
• Researching what treatments work best
  
• Commissioning clinical services
  
• Planning public health services[1] 
  

Wessex AHSN is in a position where we have a bird’s eye view of the challenges being faced in a region due to the numerous different categories our stakeholders fall into. We engage regularly with a variety of individuals with different focus and experience through our Optimising Intelligence meetings, and, working with the Hampshire & Isle of Wight STP, have formed a Taskforce to address the issues, devise the solutions and implement these across the patch.

Aligning with this initiative, the AHSN has been developing a resource to help those approaching IG, whatever their perspective for wishing to access data. We have carried out a series of consultative groups to help steer the purpose, content and value and look forward using all of the information ascertained so far with the outcomes of the workshops to create something useful the Wessex region will benefit from.

Working with NHS England as they develop an information governance tool has been incredibly insightful and rewarding, as well as giving us the opportunity to see how a national development will be successful in our local communities. The NHSE tool is set to uncomplicate matters, improve the quality of privacy impact assessments and generally make things a lot easier for those requesting data and those reviewing those requests and taking things forward.

We’d love for you to join us at one, two or even all three of our workshops in March, and encourage you to book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment as places are going fast:

• Workshop One: Agree the Vision for Data Sharing, Monday 12th March
  
• Workshop Two: Mapping the Priority Data Flows and Linkage, Friday 16th March
  
• Workshop Three: Identifying Data Blockers and Finding Solutions, Friday 23rd March
  

To register, please click here.