How Long Does It Take to Complete the Annual NHS Information Governance Toolkit Assessment?

The NHS Information Governance Toolkit assessment should be completed by all health and social care providers, regardless of whether they are actually part of the NHS or not. This includes dentists, pharmacists, acute hospitals, community services, diagnostic services, and providers of social care and support. It should also be completed by any business partners of NHS organisations who happen to deal with or process patient level information, staff information or corporate confidential information.

The NHS IG Toolkit is an assessment that needs to be completed each year, as your registration with the Toolkit only lasts a year - after that, authorities and commissioning organisations could question the validity and appropriateness of the way in which you manage information and data within your organisation. There is a national deadline against which all toolkit assessments must be submitted, and this is the 31st March of each year. Good practice however dictates that you should submit an assessment at exactly the same time of year that you first submitted your assessment. Therefore, if you made a submission to the Information Governance Toolkit in July, then your next annual assessment should also be made in July.

Most health and social care organisations find the process of submitting an annual IG assessment very stressful, and often rightly so - the amount of work involved in completing the assessment is huge. Not only do you have to write a response to each of the key IG standards, but you then have to ensure that you have all of the required evidence and documentation in place to demonstrate that you comply with each and every one of the Information Governance standards. Furthermore, in order to pass the NHS IG assessment, you must achieve at least a level 2 scoring for each of the standards; and there is a choice of levels 0-3 for each of the standards. This means that not only do you need to have documentation in place that meets the unique requirements of each Information Governance standard, but that you must ensure this documentation complies with the level 2 or level 3 requirements. It all sounds very time consuming and tricky and the annual assessment process certainly does require a generous amount of planning and organisation to ensure that the IG assessment is completed accurately, and to ensure that it is completed on time. But just how much time do you need to allocate to this annual task?

Well, there isn't really an answer to this question! Each organisation will differ depending upon (a) how large and complex the organisation is, (b) who the organisation shares information with, (c) what Information Governance processes and procedures are already in place, and (d) how aware staff are of the IG standards. But in order to assist with planning, it is recommended that at least 7 days are allocated to documentation and evidence creation, 2 days are allocated to the writing of the assessment itself, and 7 days are allocated to extensive data mapping.

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