What do we mean by public benefit? Evaluating public benefit when health and adult social care data is used for purposes beyond individual care
This National Data Guardian guidance will improve public benefit evaluations by defining and standardising the concept of public benefit to enable clearer interpretation and understanding.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
About this guidance
Who is this guidance for?
This guidance is for:
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organisations carrying out public benefit evaluations when applying to use health and adult social care data for planning, research, and innovation, without consent
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data custodians – and the bodies advising them – who need to make decisions about who can access the data they hold
What does it do?
It translates insight from the public into advice that will support better, more consistent public benefit evaluations.
It does so by:
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explaining what public benefit is, and how it is determined by the public, when data collected during care is used in service planning, innovation, and research
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pouring content and meaning into a concept that has lacked a clear definition, providing a shared understanding of what public benefit is across the sector
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supporting organisations to determine whether data collected during the provision of people’s care can also be used for purposes other than care provision
Why was it needed?
Research consistently demonstrates that for the public to consider a secondary use of health and care data appropriate and acceptable, it must deliver a benefit back to the public. This guidance will help organisations to interpret and demonstrate the public good from their work more comprehensively, accurately, and consistently.