Choosing a Telehealth provider, or any technology provider to use within the NHS requires a very careful selection process.
There are, of course, many ethical technology companies out there with evidence of incredible benefits within the NHS, who have completed all mandatory training to high standards.
The IG Assurance Mandate states, “All organisations that have access to NHS patient data must provide assurances that they are practising good information governance and use the IG Toolkit to evidence this.” Therefore, at Florence, we ensure we place a lot of importance on training our staff and ensuring they complete the required Information Governance Training.
Despite it being a mandatory requirement for commissioners to ensure organisations who process NHS Patient Data are compliant with IG requirements, many companies do not possess the correct level of accreditation. For digital or telehealth companies to process NHS patient data, they must have a data processing agreement with the commissioner and accreditation under the category of ‘NHS Business Partner’ on the HSCIC IG Toolkit, which provides mandatory assurance that they are appropriately compliant with the following;
- The Data Protection Act 1998.
- The common law duty of confidentiality.
- The Confidentiality NHS Code of Practice.
- The NHS Care Record Guarantee for England.
- The Social Care Record Guarantee for England.
- The Information Security NHS Code of Practice.
- The Records Management NHS Code of Practice.
- The Freedom of Information Act 2000.
- The Human Rights Act article 8.
- The international information security standard: ISO/IEC 27002: 2013 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013.
- The ‘Report on the review of patient-identifiable information’ (alternative title ‘The Caldicott Report’) and the ‘Information: To share or not to share? - - The Information Governance Review(also known as the Caldicott 2 Review).
- Information: To share or not to share - Government Response to the Caldicott 2 Review.
To find out how a digital/telehealth provider rates, visit the Information Governance Toolkit. Then click on ‘Report’ and enter the company name. For Florence, enter ‘Mediaburst’.
To read more on this and to see more information on what you should be looking for in a provider, take a look at Phil O’Connell’s latest blog here.