Author Archives: Paul Bradshaw

About Paul Bradshaw

Founder of Help Me Investigate. I'm a visiting professor at City University London's School of Journalism, and run an MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University. I publish the Online Journalism Blog, and am the co-author of the Online Journalism Handbook and Magazine Editing (3rd edition). I have a particular interest in Freedom of Information and data journalism.

Want to investigate GP patient lists?

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UPDATE (Feb 24 2012): You can find GP surgery-level data on demographics and other contextual information on the NHS IC Indicators site.

We’ve been following developments related to GP patient lists and proposals to abolish GP boundaries for a while, and this week saw some particularly interesting developments .

Pule reported that Department of Health advisory body Primary Care Commissioning had issued guidance on “brutal new GP list cleansing targets next year”:

“[T]he guidance lists successful list-cleansing schemes and gives examples of targeted campaigns in South Gloucestershire, South West Essex and Berkshire West which resulted in the removal of 24,000 ghost patients.

“They include sending verification letters to all patients aged over 90 to 100 years and annually to all immigrants. If they do not respond, then these patients will be given a FP69 flag to inform their GP the patient will be removed from their list.

“They also say anyone who is out of the country for three months or more should be automatically struck off GP lists and that multi-occupancy dwellings should be targeted.”

Meanwhile Eastlondonlines reported on 2 of the 6 places chosen to pilot abolishing GP boundaries for a year from the beginning of April. These are: Continue reading →

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Lead: NHS redundancy costs at a local level

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The Independent reports that Department of Health estimates “show £616.6 million accounted for in possible redundancy costs for 2011/12”. Sounds like a potential avenue for local digging…

So here’s a quick advanced search for “redundancy costs” 2011/12 site:nhs.uk – can you adapt it to find a story?

And can you find the original DoH data?

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Link: “Open but full” GP lists

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The BMJ reports on the announcement of plans to “remove incentives for general practices to have “open but full” patient lists”. It explains:

“Currently if a practice wants to close its patient list and stop accepting new patients it risks losing the right to provide additional and enhanced services. As a result some practices keep their list open but stop accepting new patients, declaring their list “open but full.”

“This term is not legally recognised within the contractual arrangements for GPs and is confusing to patients, the health department has said.

“… The department also plans to give practices more say over the closure period and allow practices to reopen their lists when they choose, subject to a notice period. However, practices will no longer be able to open or close their lists according to growth or contraction of their patient population, the so called “ping pong” arrangements.

GPs’ patient lists are an issue we’ve covered previously on HMI Health. In September we published data on patient lists (we now have national data covering 4 years) and in January we profiled the One GP’s Protest blog, which talked about the problems with registration policy and the move to remove boundaries to GP practices, the scheme which these announcements are intended to support.

If you want to help investigate either patient lists or boundaries, get in touch.

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Data: investigating “Never events” (easily avoidable medical mistakes)

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Here’s an example of where a little knowledge of jargon can give you a useful lead in finding data.

The Eastbourne Herald report on an FOI-led investigation they have done into “easily avoidable mistakes, known in the health service as Never Events”:

“BUNGLING NHS staff removed incorrect teeth and carried out a biopsy on the wrong part of a patient’s body as part of a catalogue of errors in 2010 and 2011.

“…the Herald FOI found there were seven such incidents between October 2010 and November 2011.

“They included wrong hip surgery, a piece of medical equipment known as a protoscope left inside a patient’s body and a failure to remove a throat pack following dental surgery. There was also a biopsy on the wrong part of someone’s body and a guidewire left in a patient after staff fitted a central venus pressure line.”

A quick advanced search for “Never events” filetype:xls site:nhs.uk brings up a number of spreadsheets with data you can access without an FOI.

Can you do anything with it?

Tip: try changing site:nhs.uk to your local NHS websites, or try changing filetype:xls to filetype:pdf for reports.

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Link: Health Investor

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Here’s a useful news source to follow if you’re interested in the industry around health: Health Investor covers “important political and business developments” in the health sector, profiles major players, and reports on the deals being made.

There’s also a database of those deals (described as an “archive” on the navigation) but you need to be a subscriber to access that and some of the more in-depth content. At £400 per year you may need to find a friend or a library that subscribes – there’s also a “Free trial” that includes a “restricted web pass”…

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VIDEO: Heather Brooke on using the Data Protection Act to access your records

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As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate Health, Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on using the Data Protection Act to access information about yourself, including mentions in internal correspondence or other files.

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Link: “govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote”

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The Liberal Conspiracy blog claims that despite losing a vote on the issue last year, plans to “radically reform” abortion counselling services will result in barring “independent organisations such as BPAS from offering abortion counselling to women”. It continues:

“They won’t touch MSI [Maries Stopes International] but BPAS is on its way out. They’ve already stitched it up” [says a source]

“The changes are expected to be made through what is called secondary legislation.”

This is a relatively straightforward issue to watch if you’re interested – follow the key players and watch out for the legislation.

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