Medical interoperability gateway information sharing agreement

The LMC continues to receive queries from practices about whether or not they should sign this Information Sharing Agreement. The LMC has studied in full and discussed it in June with reps from CCG and GEM. 

The project team should be providing practices with posters, and summary details, as it is a long and detailed document, however the Caldicott Guardians within practice will need to read it in full.

The LMC can see the benefits to patients of secondary care clinicians having access to coded information, and we noted that explicit consent must be sought by the treating clinician each time the record is viewed.  The ISA is thorough and detailed, and we understand the MIG system has been piloted in Nottingham.

Some issues we highlighted to the project team were regarding potential workload for practices- particularly the practice manager and/or privacy officer, as practices are notified when the record is accessed in secondary care as part of the audit trail.  The project team said they could support practices with how these notifications are received.  We also noted there is some work up front in updating practice websites with fair processing/privacy notices and posters and leaflets, as well as dealing with any patient queries arising.  Also Systm One practices may need to review their protocol on marking read coded sensitive data as 'private' for some patients.

We suggested to the project team they produce posters, leaflets and website copy, as well as some success stories, FAQ and an implementation guide for practices to support them with the rollout.

In terms of the decision as to whether or not to sign up, each practice will need to weigh up the benefits to patients and assess whether or not they have the capacity to do this.