NHS England postpones roll-out of care.data programme by six months

NHS England has agreed to postpone the uploading of data from GP patient records on to the care.data system by six months, in response to concerns that patients do not know enough about the system and how to opt out.

Uploading of data to the care.data system was due to begin on 1 April; it will now start in the autumn.

Under the care.data programme, England’s Health and Social Care Information Centre will bring together health and social care data from primary and secondary care and make pseudonymised data available to “approved groups of users,” including commissioners and researchers for planning and study purposes.

But concerns have been raised about the security of the system and how well it has been publicised.1 Leaflets about care.data were distributed to households in January, but a YouGov survey of more than 1400 people published this week found that …