Thank you for your patience while we address this problem. Thanks also for the early warning via the list server on this matter.
I will not re-narrate the issue or point out the obvious risk to patients as you are all aware of those. Please find below the steps we have taken and the guidance we suggest. I would also be grateful if you could cascade this advice to all of your practices.
1. We are pressing NHSE to remove the data field immediately, and are awaiting their response. We have impressed upon them the urgency of this and the potentially serious consequences if unstaffed email addresses were to be announced to the public with the natural assumption that they are staffed.
2. On this basis, we have been assured by NHSE that the email data field will not be published to the public and therefore practices that have already submitted the eDec can be similarly reassured that their patients will not be put at risk.
3. In line with Jerry Luke’s suggestion yesterday we would advise an extra layer of assurance for those practices that have not yet submitted their eDec. We would suggest using the placeholder: no_email@ourpractice.nhs.net
We will review with NHSE the course of events that led to this issue with the aim of preventing similar episodes in the future.