NHS England Letter Template

Dear INSERT name

RE: Request to share the relevant case notes and/or care records to INSERT name, in order for them to review the death of a person with learning disabilities in your area, under the auspice of the LeDeR programme.

The Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) Programme has been commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of NHS England.

A key role of the LeDeR Programme is to support local areas to review the deaths of people with learning disabilities. The Programme has developed and is rolling out a review process for the deaths of people with learning disabilities. The programme is helping to promote and implement the new review process and provide support to local areas to take forward the lessons learned in the reviews, in order to make improvements to service provision.

In order for the LeDeR programme to fully understand the circumstances of the deaths of people with learning disabilities, we require access to the medical and/or other records of each person who comes within the remit of the LeDeR programme.

The LeDeR programme has Section 251 approval from the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care (NIGB). The NIGB considers ethical issues, the interpretation and application of the law and policies, and provides advice on information governance matters at a national level. The Board reports annually to the Secretary of State for Health and is responsible for the NHS Care Record Guarantee for England and the Social Care Record Guarantee for England. The NHS and Social Care Record Guarantees set out the rules that govern how patient

V5.0 information is used in the NHS and social care. It covers people's access to their own records, controls on others' access, how access is monitored and policed, and what happens when individuals cannot make decisions for themselves.

The NIGB administers applications under section 251 of the NHS Act 2006 which allows the common law duty of confidentiality to be set aside in specific circumstances. This includes cases where the person about whom the data is concerned has died. The LeDeR programme has applied to the NIGB for approval for the sharing of confidential data about a person who has died. A copy of the NIGB approval letter is attached to this letter for your reassurance.

If you require any further information about the LeDeR programme, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at the contact details above.

Yours Sincerely

Dr Pauline Heslop, LeDeR Lead

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