Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the publication of the updated GP clinical code specification referred to in Annex 1 of the care.data Directions, whether any patient communications for care.data will be sent in June 2015.

The updated GP clinical code specification is scheduled for publication in June. The amendments have not changed the clinical concepts, but have focused on strengthening the precautions in place to make sure only the right codes are being extracted.

The decision to send patient communications will be made with each pathfinder area based on their readiness to proceed. No timeframes are being imposed by the programme.