Collective action or collective sigh of despair?

Copperfield asks if the GPCE’s proposed collective action on data sharing agreements is the best that GPs can do

Spring has sprung and the collective action sap is rising. As soon as the GPCE voted to take action against the imposed contract and the Government’s limp response to its protests, we were summoned to battle stations.

And this year it’s unified action: a dish of the day rather than the messy menu we were offered last time. So what is this collective spring uprising which is going to galvanise the profession and send the Government cowering? It’s… wait for it… practices being a bit awkward about data sharing agreements (DSAs).

Yes, that’s right. You may have seen the template letter each practice is being encouraged to send to our ICBs. But have you read it? I’m not sure anyone has – not even those who wrote it.

 It sets out a request for the ICB to explain what DSAs we’re mandated to comply with, because, er, we can’t figure it out ourselves. It states: ‘Pending the outcome of this review, we hereby give notice that the practice intends to terminate its agreement to and stop sharing data under any DSAs…’ Now, that ‘terminate its agreement to and stop sharing…’ bit is not my typo, and makes no sense. ‘Terminate its agreement’ to what, exactly? Something so awful they can’t write it? Something so clever they haven’t thought of it yet?

It then goes on to say that, pending the outcome of this review, the practice intends to stop sharing data under any DSAs that aren’t mandated. Hang on. How can we do that when we’ve just stated that we don’t understand what they are, which is why we’re sending this letter?

Even if this did make any kind of sense, I’d be happy to predict how the average ICB with the average number of staff (zero) will respond: it won’t. And what then? A follow up letter threatening  escalation to a month of extreme annoyance?

So, to summarise: the action is, we’re passing on a letter written by someone else to the ICB asking them to clarify data sharing, and we may stop sharing that data once we understand it, whenever that happens, if it does, or maybe we’ll stop in the interim, I’m not sure, and this might have an affect on someone’s stats somewhere but no one’s that bothered.

Which probably explains why even the GPC admits that this is an action which feels ‘safe enough for even the most risk averse practice to take’. And if the Government is wetting itself over this, it’s through amusement rather than fear, given its withering description of the action as a ‘data audit’ which will have ‘no impact’.

Look, I know collective action is fiendishly difficult and that, with the Palantir and Biobank furores, it’s a red hot potato. But still, is this the best we can do? I feel like the figure in that Banksy graffiti where my Molotov has been replaced by a bouquet. But like I say, it is spring.

Dr Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex