ÃÛÌÒAPP

Please help us improve the care of patients investigated for a possible diagnosis of cancer

We are writing to let you know about a partnership that ÃÛÌÒAPP Hospitals has established with Flatiron Health UK, to improve treatment and care for patients investigated for a possible diagnosis of cancer.

The partnership will help us to make better use of the data we hold, with the aim of learning as much as possible to inform how we treat and support patients.

Good data can provide valuable insight and understanding. It can show us when or how to do things that will have the most impact for individual patients or groups of people with similar health care needs.

Flatiron will work with ÃÛÌÒAPP Hospitals to improve the quality of our data to support better research and ensure we offer the best care possible.

To do this, we will need to share certain types of data from your records and so are writing to all patients investigated for a possible diagnosis at ÃÛÌÒAPP Hospitals, including those whose care was provided by ÃÛÌÒAPP consultants working at other hospitals or clinics in the north east or north Cumbria.

Please be assured this letter is not related to your care; it is not an indication of a new diagnosis or a change to any condition previously discussed with your care team.  If you have any concerns about why you have received this letter, please contact us so we can put your mind at ease.

The data we share with Flatiron may initially include your name, address and other identifiable information, as well as information about your diagnosis and treatment. Flatiron Health will remove the identifiable information so that it is impossible to know who you are directly from the data. Flatiron will never share your identifiable information with other people.

Under strict controls, Flatiron will allow approved researchers from academic or commercial organisations to access this anonymised data, to help them make discoveries and develop new cancer treatments.

Commercial organisations will be charged for this and income will be shared with ÃÛÌÒAPP Hospitals to invest in NHS services.

If you are happy for your data to be shared with Flatiron and more widely to support research, you do not need to do anything.

However, if you do not wish your information to be shared, please let us know within 4 weeks of receiving your letter, by emailing us at [email protected] or by calling 0191 213 7783 and selecting option 4. To ensure we can record this information accurately, please share your reference number and your date of birth.

You can also opt out at ). However, this will result in opting your data out of all NHS research and planning uses, not just from this partnership.

If you would like more information about ÃÛÌÒAPP Hospitals’ data partnerships, please visit our website at www.newcastle-hospitals.nhs.uk and search for ‘data partnerships, email or call us using the contact details above.

Yours sincerely

Dr Michael Wright
Joint Medical Director

Flatiron has support under Regulation 5 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 to process confidential patient information without consent, from The Health Research Authority, on advice from the Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG), an advisory body which provides independent expert advice on the use of confidential patient information without consent in England and Wales.

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