GRG blog

Standards are slipping

There does not seem to be any pride in the work that people do – both in terms of factual quality or in terms of the quality of the work itself. If you are implementing new processes or providing advice and guidance in areas from employment law to data protection law, there has to be

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FOI – when is a backlog not a backlog?

It is not a backlog if the ICO has not noticed how many requests are outstanding and only becomes a backlog when the ICO starts to get involved. A 2.5% compliance rate (at times) and 650+ backlog should never have been acceptable and senior management should have been fighting tooth and nail to overcome the

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What next for the NHS?

New government, good intentions but asking for another Darzi report seems a bit meaningless. I hope that they do not see contractors as the “villain” – a lot of us understand what we are doing, are value for money and bluntly, keeping knowledge in the system when permanent staff are looking to leave.

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Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) season

June is alway the worst time if you do Information Governance (IG) in the NHS because you have to get your DSPT submission in by the end of the month. It never seems to get easier because the basic work never really gets planned into the working year. There is always something else that takes

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Faith representatives, spiritual care and the NHS

If you have a faith or belief then I have nothing against that. Whether that faith or belief is compatible with data protection legislation is out of my remit. If the law does not specifically say as a faith representative that you can have access to patient records that is a reflection of the uncertainty

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DSPT Audit Time

Ok – it has been going on for the last few months and June is now submission time. There will be some interesting tweaks in 2024/25 but the key message has to be this is business as usual. Just like FOI or SAR, DSPT returns are business as usual. Workloads may be increasing but this

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