In May 2018, I announced the Welsh Government will be establishing a state backed scheme from April 2019 to provide clinical negligence indemnity for providers of GP services in Wales. In November 2018 I announced Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services as the preferred partner to operate the state backed scheme for GPs in Wales in relation to clinical negligence claims arising from April 2019 (known as the Future Liabilities Scheme). I confirmed that a final decision on the delivery of the scheme would be made following further engagement with medical defence organisations and our other stakeholders.
Following subsequent engagement with medical defence organisations and our other stakeholders, I have decided that NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services will operate the state backed scheme for GPs in Wales in relation to clinical negligence claims arising from 1 April 2019.
NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services is best placed to support the strategic primary models of care in Wales that align with the vision set out in A Healthier Wales: our Plan for Health and Social Care, and the national primary care plan for Wales. NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services will identify shared learning in relation to GP clinical negligence claims which will build on the shared learning process currently embedded in the Wales secondary care scheme aimed at reducing the frequency of claims and improving the quality of care and patient safety. The decision for NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services to operate the state backed scheme for GPs in Wales has strong support from GPC Wales and NHS Wales.
Our engagement with the medical defence organisations and GPs has identified where collaboration and coordination with medical defence organisations is required given the indemnity cover medical defence organisations will continue to provide for GPs. These include a single point of contact, cross border claims, GMC hearing issues; GP guidance and support, including medico-legal advice. NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership - Legal and Risk Services are engaging with the medical defence organisations and GPs on these important issues to ensure GPs will continue to have a high quality service, with a strong and clear interface with medical defence organisations.
Welsh Government remains committed to working closely with the medical defence organisations and key stakeholders to ensure that GPs in Wales have a scheme which protects their professional reputation and delivers sustainable and accessible healthcare.
I will provide a further Written Statement on progress made in relation to discussions with the medical defence organisations covering clinical negligence claims which have arisen before April 2019 (known as the Existing Liabilities Scheme) in due course.
Dear colleague,
You will have recently had a letter from the respiratory delivery board regarding proposed data extraction for the asthma / COPD audit.
There has been a change in process this year whereby a 3rd party commercial company, Informatica, will be processing the anonymised data set under clearly defined parameters. As data controller for your practice data it is important you understand what this means as should any commercial company then use data received for other purposes, although this should only happen wirh consent of the data controller, ( I.e. the practice) there is a risk, albeit very low, that the Information Commissioners Office could find a practice partly to blame.
It is also worth noting that HB associate medical director, head of primary care and associate medical director will have access to individual practice data as well as aggregated cluster and HB data. There is a clear agreement this is not to be used for performance management.
Engagement / participation in the audits is entirely voluntary so practices need to carefully digest and consider the formal letter received along with the above information and respond to the HB as to whether or not you wish to participate.
Kind Regards,
Charlotte
Thank you for registering with the Information Governance, Data Protection Officer (IG, DPO) Support Service. We are pleased to confirm that we have received sufficient subscriptions from GMPs across Wales to formally deliver this service and provide the ‘Data Protection Officer as a Service’ function for those practices who have subscribed.
With effect from 1st December 2018 you will have access to the basic service provision, as detailed within the Service Schedule; whilst we recruit staff resources. This initial support will be provided by the existing IG Support Service for GMPs until the additional posts are filled; which we anticipate will be during the early part of 2019. Whilst we are unable to provide a fully functioning service during the first few months, we have acknowledged this by not charging for the service support until the next financial year. The costing model will be effective from the 1st April 2019, on this date NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) will collate the number of patients registered to the practice at that time. That patient head count will be multiplied by £00.0965 then divided by four to determine the quarterly charge for that first quarter of the financial year. The first quarterly payment will then be taken, as already authorised, by NWSSP on the 31st June 2019, this process will continue every three months. See the example costing model in Section 5.4 of the Service Support Schedule.
Contacting the Support Service
To contact the IG Support Service we ask for you to continue logging your enquiries at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. which is directed to our call management system, ActionPoint. You will receive an email receipt from ActionPoint confirming your Call reference number, this will allow you track progress of your enquiry. We have detailed a standard response time of a maximum of 5 working days, although we will endeavour to respond sooner. As the calls are triaged, regularly throughout the day, they will be allocated a ‘Priority Level’. All urgent enquiries will be provided with a maximum next working day response time. The service
will be available between 9am and 5pm Monday to Thursday with a 4.30 close on a Friday.
Planned communications
We will be arranging a Stakeholder Engagement Webinar session early in January 2019 (date to follow shortly) to inform subscribed practices on the service progression, for example, position on recruitment, development of resources, and further detail on our service implementation plan. This interactive webinar will also be recorded and made available on the Information Governance website for anyone who is unable to access the live session.
During the first few months of 2019 we plan to hold face to face Stakeholder Engagement Seminars arranged, by health board locality. This will give practice representatives and the Support Service Team the opportunity to meet, provide updates on the service progression and clarity on the service priorities, discus any actions from the webinar, and answer any general queries that practices may have at that time.
In addition to these sessions we will producing a monthly Newsletter to keep practices updated with progress of the service, any planned events, latest developments in the resources and knowledge base, training and any other topics we think you may be interested in, etc. The Newsletters will be maintained in a specific area of the Information Governance website, details to follow.
A specific IG, DPO Support Service page has been developed on the IG website where previous communications regarding the service is available for information, this page will be updated as appropriate.
Next Steps
There is a requirement to inform the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of the update to your Data Protection Officer. We have been in contact with the ICO and agreed that the Support Service are able to inform them of such updates on behalf of those subscribed GMPs, particularly with the large number of practices registering with the DPO Support Service at the same time.
We will notify them as follows:
Name of the ‘Data Protection Officer as a Service’ - NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS), Information Governance, Data Protection Officer Support Service
Address - 4th Floor, Tŷ Glan-yr-Afon, 21 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9AD
Contact via - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
We have been assured that where the practice has already notified the ICO themselves of these updates, it will not cause any problems for them.
This information should also be made available to your patients and staff. We recommend that the details are published on the practice website and that staff are made aware so that if they receive any enquiries they know where to direct individuals to.
As the practice DPO, the Support Service requires practices to complete the Welsh IG Toolkit for GMPs on an annual basis. Population and submission of the toolkit will enable the service to measure the practice compliance against legislation, this is a mandatory requirement of the DPO role under GDPR. The current toolkit is open until 31st March 2019. Once the toolkit submissions are received, the service will undertake high level analysis to identify any areas which may require improvement/development and provide recommendations/support for these to be implemented across the practices’. For information: If evidence is not loaded to the toolkit we may request copies, where appropriate, of documentation. For example, IG improvement plans, procedures, patient information, etc to support your submission. We see this analysis of the IG Toolkit submissions as a focal point to inform future priorities of the Support Service
We would like to assure you of our commitment to develop and deliver a high quality IG, DPO Support Service, helping you overcome information governance challenges, providing necessary advice and support to help you embed a robust data protection compliance regime, within the practice.
We look forward to working with you and supporting the practice with this service. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the Support Service at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This message from the primary care team clarifies the requirements of the audit documents which form part of your Annual Contract Review for 2018-2019.
The audits will cover the period 01.04.2017 – 31.03.2018.
Recognising that practices have come into some enhanced services incrementally, practices will only have to complete these new audits from the period in which they commenced the new service.
The Anti Coagulation Audit is based on the new service which commenced in January 2017.
The Care Homes Audit is part of the service specification which commenced in April 2017.
If you were not providing either during the dates indicated, then please use the old audit templates to report back to the Health Board.
In respect of diabetes, this will be based on the National Diabetes Audit. Practices are required to participate in this audit, reflect on the findings within the practice. Practices can access their practice level data via Audit Plus and should provide it to the Health Board if requested.
If you have not already done so, can you please ensure these are submitted by 31st December 2018.
Please do not hesitate to contact a member of the GMS contracting team with any queries.