WIREDGOV

The ICO has launched the ‘Be Data Aware’ campaign to help people understand how organisations might be using their data to target them online, and how people can control who is targeting them.

This includes understanding how organisations use people’s data to reach them with social media adverts to market goods or services and for political marketing.  The ICO’s ongoing investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes has uncovered the ‘behind the scenes’ processing of personal data, including algorithms, analysis, data matching and profiling that involves people’s personal information.

One of the recommendations from the investigation was for the ICO to continue to educate the public on the impact of new and developing technologies and the use of data analytics in political campaigns.  The Be Data Aware campaign does just that.

With a number of resources, including downloadable factsheets on privacy & advertising settings, information about people’s right to be informed and explanations of how online microtargeting works, this new campaign reminds people of their rights under the GDPR and how to exercise them.

A new £9m programme to spot heart conditions earlier will save at least 200 lives and offer protection to thousands more, NHS England has announced.

The scheme, which will run until next March 2020, will see almost 20,000 people at higher risk of experiencing a stroke receive targeted checks & treatment as part of the NHS Long Term Plan’s renewed focus on preventing and tackling killer conditions.

Patients will be identified by specialist nurses and clinical pharmacists across the country who are trained to treat a heart condition – called atrial fibrillation – which increases the chance of having a stroke.  Specialist clinicians will identify patients in each surgery who have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation but are not receiving treatment.  Anyone identified as being at risk will be offered a personalised treatment plan developed with their GP.

In the Thames Valley, it was found that, the data showing if the NHS services were meeting the NICE quality standards for antenatal and postnatal mental health was missing.

In 2017 Thames Valley Strategic Clinical Network designed an online tool, the PMH matrix, to collect performance data from NHS services working with women with or at risk of developing PMH problems. Performance standards are the NICE quality standards for antenatal & postnatal mental health.  Prior to this, there was no system available to determine the quality of these NHS services.

Teams working across the south of England in maternity, health visiting, and secondary care mental health and psychology services are invited to enter their performance data in the PMH matrix.  The data is displayed in graphs on a live dashboard which shows how well services are performing against the NICE quality standards as well as how many referrals have been received and staffing levels for each service.  Teams can benchmark their performance against other local & regional teams, and map trends over time.

The PMH matrix has triggered a number of quality improvement projects in our region:

• a mental health trust-wide review of valproate prescription for women of child-bearing age
• plans for mental health & maternity services to improve shared clinical decision-making with women with mental health problems
• an update of maternity clinical records to record the midwives’ & health visitors’ questions about women’s emotional well-being, to improve identification of PMH problems

The UK government is backing industry plans for a multi-£m underwater engineering hub in Aberdeen.

Bringing together underwater technologies from both industry & academia from up & down the country, the planned Global Underwater Engineering Hub will reinforce the UK’s status as a global leader in the field and build on expertise in subsea robotics, remotely-operated underwater vehicles and maritime support vessels.  Seizing the opportunities in the blue economy will also help the UK’s oil & gas sector diversify and support the UK move away from fossil fuels towards clean growth.