Overview
This service lets patients choose whether their confidential information is used for purposes beyond their individual care and treatment. All non-GP organisations must be compliant by the date set by NHS England. It is your responsibility to assess whether the data in question is anonymised to ICO standards or needs to be filtered for the opt-out.
“Empowering patients to manage how their details are used can improve trust and data quality, saving time on manual consent checks.”
Key Steps
- Check compliance criteria: Confirm that your organisation is prepared to exclude opted-out patient data from any uses beyond individual care.
- Handle extract requests: If you need to apply the opt-out filter to extracts (including IQ extracts), contact EMIS Delivery Operations. They can help schedule and set up these extracts without pausing the service.
- Create or confirm a MESH mailbox: The national data opt-out communications happen via MESH. If you do not already have a mailbox, raise a request for one.
- Respect patient choices: Remember it can take up to 21 days for an opt-out to fully register. Ensure you honour it within your data flows once in effect.
