Patient Information Advisory Group
Patient Information Advisory Group
A non-departmental public body (arm’s-length body, quango) in the UK which was established under Section 61 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001, to advise on issues of national significance relating to the use of patient information and to oversee arrangements created under Section 60 of the Act, and subsequently under Section 251 of the NHS Act 2006, which permits the common-law duty of confidentiality to be set aside in specific circumstances for medical purposes.PIAG provided the power and mechanism for ensuring that patient-identifiable information needed to support essential NHS activity—e.g., transferring personal health data to other organisations within the NHS—could be used without formal consent by the patients. PIAG drew its members from patient groups, healthcare professionals and regulatory bodies. PIAG was replaced by the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care (NIGB) under Section 158 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. It was disbanded in 2008, and responsibility for administering Section 251 powers transferred to the NIGB in 2009.