Health and Social Care Data Board meeting minutes: February 2023

Attendees and apologies

Chair

• Carol Sinclair (CS)

Board Members

• Marion Bain (MB)
• Alan Bell (AB)
• Susan Cloke (SC)
• Euan Dick (ED)
• Mel Giarchi (MG)
• Roger Halliday (RH)
• Scott Heald (SH)
• Albert King (AK)
• Eilidh McLaughlin (EM)
• Martin Murchie (MM)
• Trish Quinn (TQ)
• Lewis Ritchie (LR)
• Penni Rocks (PR)
• Alison White (AW)

In attendance

• Sarah Lowry (SL)
• Martin Morrison (MMo)
• Brendan O'Brien (BO'B)

Programme team

• Simon Crawley (SCr)
• Imme Jones (IJ)
• Ruth Griffith (RG)
• Mark Simpson (MS)
• Gemma Wilson (GW)

Apologies

• Ryan Anderson (RA)
• Colin Birchenall (CB)
• Jonathan Cameron (JC)
• Karen Hedge (KH)
• Andrew Strait (AS)
• Jonathan Todd (JT)

Items and actions

Welcome, Introductions and Apologies.

CS welcomed everyone to the sixthmeeting of the Health and Social Care Data Board.

Apologies were noted from Ryan Anderson (RA), Colin Birchenall (CB), Jonathan Cameron (JC), Karen Hedge (KH), Andrew Strait (AS), Jonathan Todd (JT).

Minutes of the previous meeting held on 14 December 2022 have been published on our website.

Minutes and Action Log

The board noted:

Minutes of Health and Social Care Data Board meeting held on 14 December 2022 were agreed as true.

RH provided an update to action log item DHC DB 023: advising that he spoke to stakeholders regards the lack of clarity around industry access to data. A document outlining the issues identified and actions required to improve access to data has been produced and is currently being finalised for publication.

RH will provide a further update and the outcomes of the SLWG at the next Data Board meeting on 25 April 2023.

Primary Care Intelligence Platform

Sarah Lowry, Scott Heald and Brendan O’Brien provided an overview of the Primary Care Intelligence Platform.

The Primary Care Intelligence Platform is a collaborative piece of work between Public Health Scotland (PHS), National Services Scotland (NSS) and the Scottish Government. The platform covers General Practitioners, Dental Practices, Community Optometry Practices, Community Pharmacies, Out of Hours services, Scottish Ambulance services and NHS 24.

The presentation covered: 

• why we need a Primary Care Data and Intelligence Platform 
• what has been achieved to date
• where the programme wants to go next
• how the Health and Social Care Data Board can the primary care team to link up with other relevant programmes of work

The board noted:

• the platform is a key deliverable in the Health and Social Care Data Strategy, regarding improving GP-IT systems to unlock the value of primary care data, including data for research purposes
• there are currently two data extraction tools used throughout Scotland
  • SPIRE - managed by PHS, allows for data extraction at a clinical level, extracts data about why people are seeing their GP and disease prevalence
  • Albasoft - who work on behalf of Scotland assisting with the Vaccinations data throughout the pandemic and more recently GP activity data
• there is currently a scoping exercise underway to identify members of a GP Editorial Board to allow for oversight of all requests coming through primary care data
• NSS are in the process of procuring intellectual property which will allow NSS to develop tools to facilitate GP data extraction currently done by Albasoft

The board was asked:

• to note the progress made to improve access to primary care data and support the planned direction of travel  
• for advice on opportunities for public and professional communication and engagement in respect of the proposed uses of primary care data 
• to identify links that could be made with other programmes and projects 

The board discussed:

• that a  Primary Care Data and Intelligence Platform board is being established and consideration will be given to how this Board will link to Data Board, Enabling Technology Board and Health and Social Care Management Board
• how the Primary Care Data and Intelligence Platform links to the Seer Programme and further to the  National Safe Havens in Scotland, to ensure trust is maintained with the public

The board agreed:

• to support the platform and assist with the communication and engagement, specifically around the next phase of engagement for the Data Strategy

Next steps:

SL to produce a roadmap which outlines who will have access to data and the timescales for access.

Seer 2 Programme

Albert King provided an overview of the Seer 2 programme covering: 

The presentation covered:

• the role of Seer as the data utility for health and care in Scotland
• progress of the Seer 2 programme
• how the Seer Platform will interact with other key programmes such as NDP
• the opportunities of Seer 2 that can support the ambitions of the data strategy 

The board noted:

• the Seer platform supports the ambitions of the Data Strategy for Health and Social Care to empower those delivering health and social care services and to ensure that fit for purpose data is readily accessible in three important ways:
• by providing a national technology and infrastructure for data management and analytics
• by enabling users across the health and social care to access high quality data sets to create insights and improve services
• enables access to data in a safe and secure environment
• data trust layer allows data to be discovered and described effectively to help automation of data flows
• seer has a data and analysis capability for National Digital Platform, it provides a core repository across a range of programmes and will also link in with the primary care intelligence platform
• provides a platform for users to collaborate when using data

The board was asked:

• to note progress of the Seer 2 programme
• to consider opportunities to achieve strategic ambitions and improve services
• to raise awareness of the programme

The board discussed:

• the role of Seer for the research and innovation community and how Seer brings transparency over the data that is available
•  the Seer platform provides quality assurance of the data that is held which may present opportunities for using this data for AI purposes
• how Seer adheres to FAIR principles by having data that is well described and can assist with unlocking metadata to allow people to discover the data and access it

The board agreed:

• to support and raise awareness of the programme and to consider any opportunities that will assist the Seer programme achieving its strategic ambitions

Community Health Index (CHI) – GP Patient Registration System (GPPRS)

Martin Morrison provided an update on CHI-GPPRS.

The presentation covered: 

• the background of the CHI-GPPRS programme and its current status, risks and challenges
• the implementation pathway for CHI-GPPRS
• the impacts on digital health ecosystem over next two years
• the data benefits of CHI  and the potential to support wider health and social care transformation

The board noted:

• the new CHI system is currently due to be completed and implemented by Q2 of 2023
• that new CHI will improve the quality and timeliness of data flows and have an added benefit of being able to capture additional data items such as ethnicity data
• the new CHI system has the ability to capture  your current address rather than your registered address with your GP

The board was asked:

• to note the progress that the programme has made to date 
• to discuss the opportunities that the new CHI platform can provide to the wider provision of health & social care in Scotland 

The board discussed:

• how CHI can improve the collection of protected characteristics data
• the security improvements of the new CHI system and how this can improve security and trust 
• the possibility of a Short Life Working Group for CHI and how the Data Board can assist with future strategic intention of the development of CHI
• the importance of the Data Board and CHI Management Board having closer links t may remove the need for a SLWG
• the need to further explore the format of the CHI number and what is required for the platform to support unique identifiers

Next steps:

CS, PR, MMo AB and AH to arrange a discussion regarding closer links between the Data Board and CHI Management Board.

Data Strategy Update

GW and MS provided an update on the Data Strategy.

The presentation covered: 

• the governance process the Data Strategy has gone through since December
• the feedback received regarding the Data Strategy and changes made to the Strategy to make it public facing
• the comms approach following the launch of the strategy and next steps 

The board noted:

• the Data Strategy was issued to the Health and Social Care Management Board and COSLA for sign off and final feedback
• the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care approved the Strategy for publication on 22 February
• the Data Strategy was formally launched at the Digital Health and Care Scotland Conference and published on Gov.scot on 22nd February
• the next phase of engagement is currently in development  
• next steps include identifying priority actions for inclusion in the delivery plan and setting up a process for monitoring delivery of the Strategy deliverables

The board was asked:

• to promote the Data Strategy using the slides provided

The board agreed:

• to promote the Data Strategy with their teams and stakeholders

Next steps:

GW will update the Data Board on options for monitoring progress of the Data Strategy deliverables at the next Data Board meeting on 25 April

Any Other Business & Close

Next Data Board Meeting: Tuesday 25 April at 13:00 to 15:30