General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDfPR)
NHS Digital's daily collection of GP data will support vital health and care planning and research.
- The ability for patients to opt out or back in to sharing their GP data with NHS Digital, with data being deleted even if it has been uploaded, and outstanding opt outs being processed
- A Trusted Research Environment is available where approved researchers can work securely on de-identified patient data which does not leave the environment, offering further protections and privacy while enabling collaboration amongst trusted researchers to further benefit patients
- A campaign of engagement and communication has increased public awareness of the programme, explaining how data is used and patient choices.
NHS Digital has been directed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care under the General Practice Data for Planning and Research Directions 2021 to collect and analyse data from GP practices for health and social care purposes including policy, planning, commissioning, public health and research purposes.
The data held in the GP medical records of patients is used every day to support health and care planning and research in England, helping to find better treatments and improve patient outcomes for everyone. NHS Digital has developed a new way to collect this data, called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research data collection. The new data collection reduces burden on GP practices, allowing doctors and other staff to focus on patient care.
For further information see: General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDfPR).
Only structured and coded data from patient medical records that is needed for specific health and social care purposes will be collected; data that directly identifies an individual patient, including NHS number, General Practice Local Patient Number, full postcode, date of birth and if relevant date of death, is replaced with unique codes produced by de-identification software before it is sent to NHS Digital. Further information about what data are collected can be found at the links below.
The data are stored in a relational data model with separate tables for different aspects of primary care.
The information is correct as Version 1 of the GP Data Set on 12 May 2021 and there are no planned updates.
If you have a question about the General Practice Data for Planning and Research data collection, please email enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.
Coding Systems
The GPDfPR uses coded data within patient records, however there are several coding systems available for use in primary care.
The data model allows for data from several coding systems to be collected. As a coded concept may mean something different in each table of the relational model, for example, a code in the allergy table could represent a specific allergy or allergic reaction whereas a code in the immunisation table could represent a specific vaccination; therefore a separate 'Codable concept' table is provided to describe each coding system.
By convention it is expected that codes will be extracted in the terminology that was originally used to record the coded information e.g. legacy Read v2 or CTV3 codes along with a SNOMED translation. When information is recorded directly in SNOMED CT only the SNOMED code will be extracted. By convention, both the SNOMED Concept Id and Description Id are extracted where possible. For further information see
References
Tables
The data fields are listed out on separate page for each table of the relational data model:
