GPC chair urges practices to take part in ‘unifying’ data sharing collective action
GPs should notify their ICB that they are stopping voluntarily sharing data as part of ‘unifying’ collective action, the leader of English GPs has said.
Last week the BMA’s GP committee voted to immediately enter collective action against this year’s imposed contract given the Government’s ‘insufficient assurances’ regarding their concerns over unlimited access.
Today GPC chair Dr Katie Bramall told Pulse that a ‘full guidance pack’ on collective action will be published this week, but that all practices need to do now is send a template letter to their ICBs notifying them of collective action impacting data sharing.
The first single collective action that the committee is urging practices to take is to cease signing up to any new voluntary data sharing agreements (DSAs) that ‘extract patient data for secondary uses’, for example, medical research conducted by charities, commercial organisations and universities or health service planning carried out by Government agencies or local NHS organisations.
Dr Bramall added that GPs participating in the action don’t need to be BMA members and ‘will not be breaching contracts’.
She told Pulse: ‘In a perfect world, we need unifying collective action for GP partnerships that can be effectively escalated each month.
‘A perfect action reduces partner liabilities and risks – certainly it doesn’t increase them. It strengthens GP-patient trust and strikes at the heart of Government strategy.
‘Ideally it’s reversible and universally applicable in every ICB, not identically perhaps, but everyone can do something. As a first action it also needs to feel safe enough for even the most risk-averse practice to take. The template letter action we are proposing ticks all of these boxes.’
Dr Bramall went on to stress that the action will not impact patients.
‘GPs won’t feel it. Patients won’t feel it – and that’s kind of the point,’ she said.
‘The target is the Government’s neighbourhood health service, its planned left shift of work from acutes which is reliant on our population health management data, and the reminder ahead of the impending Health Bill of how seriously GPs and their patients take data controller responsibilities – which Government wishes to take with the impending single care record.’
The template letter that practices are asked to send says that accessing a ‘definitive or current register’ of DSAs, with a ‘clear articulation’ of their legal, contractual, or professional basis ‘has hitherto been a challenge’.
It asks ICBs, in line with the BMA GPC England’s national collective action, to ‘undertake a comprehensive review’ of all DSAs across the system, and confirm a full list, the purpose of each agreement and legal requirements underpinning them.
It adds that pending the outcome of this review, practices give notice that they intend to terminate agreement to and stop sharing data under any DSAs where:
- There is ‘no contractual obligation on the practice to share the data’ (sharing the data is wholly voluntary)
- There is ‘no professional obligation upon the practice to share the data’ (the ICB has considered obligations under the GMC’s Good Medical Practice); and
- There is ‘no statutory or mandated data Direction requiring the data flow’ (for example, directions issued by the health secretary).
The letter added: ‘We recognise that cessation of certain data flows may have implications for patient care, public health, or system functioning.
‘We also recognise that, where contractual or professional obligations exist, withdrawal may not be appropriate and could place the practice in breach of those obligations. It is therefore essential that your review clearly identifies these dependencies and risks.’
Action for practices
- We have produced a template letter for practices to send to their local system information governance leads which will put the onus on the ICB to respond with the required information to its constituent practices.
- We are calling on practices to cease any new potential sign-up to voluntary DSAs.
- We are concerned that many existing DSAs may be unlawfully extracting GP patient data for secondary uses, i.e. medical research conducted by charities, commercial third parties, universities, or health service planning carried out by government agencies or local NHS organisations. Data used in this way is deemed non-essential for the direct care of patients and therefore carries no inherent and immediate risk to patient safety if data-sharing is then revoked.
- We are advising that practices take steps with their LMCs to use this opportunity to review and assess each existing DSA the practice may currently be signed up to, and determine those where they may wish to cease data sharing.
- Practices are encouraged to engage and discuss this action with their PPGs.
Source: GPC message to GPs
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘There have been constructive talks with the BMA GPCE in recent weeks, and good progress has been made. As a result, the only action the BMA is taking is a data audit, which will help inform future discussions.
‘It is important for patients to know that there will be no impact on patient services and that they should continue to contact their GP if they need to, as they normally would.
‘We will continue to engage with the BMA GPCE in the coming weeks to resolve outstanding issues and to avoid the need for any escalation.
‘GPs play a pivotal role in the NHS and we remain committed to working with the BMA to rebuild general practice and make it fit for the future, for the benefit of both GPs and patients.’
READERS' COMMENTS [4]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
I fully support collective action in the round but I’m not sure that turning data sharing off will have any impact at all. I fear it may harm us as neighbourhoods develop. If we want to lead neighbourhoods we will need to show we are good and effective system partners that share data. I fear turning off data sharing will not really harm nor influence government policy but could destroy our engagement as neighbourhoods emerge. If we are going to take action we should ensure we limit cases seen to within a safe working limit envelope. This is an evidence based approach as we know excess work leads to worse outcomes and its very hard for the government to challenge this. We need to be safe, and being safe with limited funding means restricting access to patients. Difficult when we are contract holders but we do need to be firm and united.
It is hard to find an ‘industrial action’ that affects the employer adversely, but does not inconvenience the public – however, this is one.
it is even harder to find an ‘industrial action’ that is to the benefit of patients and follows their wishes – and this meets that criteria too, as many patients are NOT happy with their data being sold to organisations linked to war crimes, such as Palantir!
I think the whole point is that it will delay development of ‘neighbourhoods’, who cannot progresss without GP support and data anyway, so opting out again fits the bill here, since few people want them anyway.
Agree David, the BMA has found an effective chokepoint possibly fatal to Big Tech’s aspirations for Technofeudalusm.
Use the Hormuz strategy and bring DHSC to the table for real good faith talks, instead of the games they’ve been playing with patients’ lives.
This proposed “industrial action” feels less like a decisive stand by a united profession and more like a theatrical administrative exercise. This is an industrial action that risks confusing symbolism with strength. As clinicians, our authority has never derived from noise, bureaucracy, or procedural obstruction. It has always derived from moral seriousness, intellectual honesty, and the trust patients place in us at their most vulnerable moments.
I say this not as someone indifferent to the crisis in general practice. I have dedicated my life to medicine with deep conviction: from surgical training and neurophysiology to the restoration of true General Practice as a vocation rather than a transactional service industry. I understand the frustration. I live it every day. The relentless transfer of unfunded risk and workload from secondary care into primary care is unsustainable and corrosive to the profession.
But strategy matters.
If we are to act collectively, it must be with clarity, discipline, and unmistakable unity. Otherwise, we risk the worst outcome of all: not defeat, but diminishment.
The repeated claim that “99% voted in favour” is rhetorically powerful but statistically incomplete. Approximately 17,000 BMA GP members voted, with turnout around 55%, meaning roughly 16,830 supported the action. Against a UK GP workforce of approximately 40,000–45,000, this equates to perhaps 37–42% of practising GPs overall. That is not trivial, and neither is it the overwhelming national mandate implied by the headline.
And this matters profoundly. Collective action only carries weight when participation is visibly broad and culturally cohesive. If major practices quietly decline to participate, the profession risks exposing not solidarity, but fragmentation. We mistake volume for force. What emerges is what I somewhat irreverently call the “Chihuahua effect”: loud defiance masking limited leverage.
There is also something philosophically uncomfortable about weaponising data governance as a surrogate battlefield for contractual frustration. Patient confidentiality, lawful data stewardship, and transparency are sacred obligations. If there are genuinely unlawful or ethically questionable data-sharing arrangements, they should be challenged directly through principled governance and legal scrutiny, not tactically repurposed as industrial theatre.
The contradiction within the proposed letter is itself revealing. It repeatedly concedes that withdrawing from data-sharing arrangements may impair patient care, disrupt system functioning, or even breach professional obligations. yet, simultaneously frames the action as ethically justified resistance. That ambiguity weakens the moral authority upon which the medical profession ultimately depends.
Medicine is not trade unionism in the classical industrial sense. We are not factory labour negotiating production quotas. We are custodians of human trust. When we act, we must do so from a position of ethical coherence and professional gravitas.
Otherwise, we risk exchanging dignity for gesture.