Business/Emergency Continuity Plans
In the light of history showing that crises happen (foot and mouth, flood, heighteded states of terror threats) the PCTs are obliged under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to ensure that organisations it contract with are maintained the event of an emergency. Practices will therefore be obliged to have a Business Emergency Continuity Document.
Here is a template document which is available for your practice to download and modify to suit your practice needs.
FS Oct 08
Five New Clinical DES's
Information Governance Statement of Compliance (IGSoc )
This helpful letter was sent to us by Dr Paul Cundy (BMA spokesman on IT)
I thought it might help to send you this. Please distribute as you see fit. The first point to make is that information Governance is not to be taken lightly, especialy by GPs and general practices. We are the traditional life long record holder and we must ensure that privacy and confidentiality are paramount and that your entire organisation from Senior partner down to the cleaners are aware and allways behave in ways that protect the information that patients entrust to us.
I am aware that some PCTs are sending out volumes of documentation regarding IGSoC which may be causing some confusion. Some may not. This mail is intended to help clarify and offer practices a route to IGSoC compliance which is due by the end of this month.
The first thing to state is that the vast majority of the documentation they may have sent you is NOT obligatory, it is merely advisory. As you will see later there are only two obligatory steps for IGSoC compliance. Most of the forms I've seen sent by PCTs have simply been copied from the CfH IGSoC web site and forwarded to you. The actual process for getting signed up to IGSoC can be much easier and streamlined, indeed the GPC and CfH allways intended it to be so.
IGSoC is the replacement for what used to be called the Code of Connection which was the agreement that anyone who wanted to use NHS net had to sign. Now that much more is available over NHS net (aka N3) and that we have services like Choose and Book and GP2GP transfer and SCR the code of connection has been revised and expanded to encompass the concept of protecting data as well as the reality. It also incorprates the hard learned lessons from data leaks of the past.
The bottom line is that all a practice needs to do to complete IGSoC is; 1) submit a completed questionaire and 2) fill in one page of a document.
The whole process can be done via e-mail although to access the final confirmatory links you will need to be on an NHS net (N3) connected PC.
May I suggest you first download and read the joint BMA / CfH statement found at
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/infogov/igsoc/new-joint.pdf
then go to
http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/infogov/igsoc/nhs/general
to get an understanding of the general process. Basically follow the instructions on the web site and you can't go wrong. IGSoC for a general practice is a simple two stage process. The web site will take you through; First, an Information Governance Toolkit Assesment.
Information Governance Toolkit Assesment
The main point of completing this questionaire is to find out where you are on the path to full IGSoC so its not about getting the best score but being honest and noting what areas you need to address. The system is pretty easy and many practices will already have submitted an assesment either in 2007 or early 2008.
There have been some changes in the requirements but not for General Practices so if you submitted an assesment using an earlier version it will still stand.
Once you've submitted your assesment it will need to be validated. This document is the help guide to doing this https://www.igt.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/Getting%20Started%20for%20General%20Practice.doc
The list of requirements you will be assesed against are found here
https://www.igt.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/RequirementsList.aspx?tk=642918559&lnv=4&cb=10%3a08%3a13&sViewOrgType=4&sDesc=General+Practice if you wanted to have a look before completing the assesment.
You can then move on to stage two;
Completing the IGSoC Statement on behalf of the practice.
This is essentialy all contained within this document which the senior partner (sic) will have to sign on behalf of the practice
https://www.igt.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/Getting%20Started%20for%20General%20Practice.doc .
Once you've submitted this you will receive a set of e-mails that ask you to follow links to a confirmation web site with a confirmation code. Follow the instructions and you'll soon receive your IGSoC confirmation certificate. You don't have to tell your PCT (although it might be polite to do so) because they can track your progress through the an online tracking database that they have access to.
I hope this helps, remeber to keep information only for the purpose it was collected for and only amiongst those who need it. Any questions don't call me call them or 0113 397 3646.
Regards
Paul Cundy
FS Oct 08
