Lambeth DataNet: Individual Patient Registration Profile Community Consultation (2016)

Healthwatch Lambeth facilitated community engagement for the local CCG on whether people would be willing to provide more detail on their demographic characteristics to GPs, in particular on gender reassignment, sexual orientation and disability.  They undertook 8 engagement sessions, reaching 60 people.

Based on the feedback received through this exercise, Healthwatch believe that a revised IPRP form that collects data on additional fields of disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment and socioeconomic status is acceptable to be disseminated to patients registered with Lambeth GPs. While there are several changes to be made to ensure that the form is presented in a clear, simple and accessible way, and that respondents are provided with sufficient information about why the data is being collected, the results of the consultation suggest that questions thought to be potentially sensitive were received positively by the majority of respondents. 

Key strategic questions such as: how a new form would be disseminated to existing patients via GP surgeries; how to ensure its availability in multiple languages; the frequency of updates required to ensure data validity; and whether LDN and GP registration forms should be merged as one should be debated as part of the next phase of project planning.