This directory appears to have been created using open-source data from the CQC and the provider says the information is published on its website to assist with patients accessing their summary care records. The site has one page per CQC registered NHS GP practice, including listing the name of a practice and the CQC registered individuals who work there.
Londonwide LMCs’ concern is that snippets of these pages appear in search engine results and may be interpreted by patients as indicating some association between the provider and the NHS practices/GPs listed on their website. It is also potentially confusing to patients arriving at a web page that contains details of an NHS GP practice, interspersed with prompts to check their eligibility for a private treatment.
This use of data appears to be compliant with the conditions of the CQC open-source licence, which raises the prospect of other private providers realising that it is relatively simple to generate a large number of web pages linking their products to NHS GP practices and reaping the search engine advantages from doing so. If patients search for the name of their registered NHS practice and the particular products/services that are available from the private provider, a page that contains details of both is likely to be return towards the top of the results.
We suggest practices begin to look out for similar uses of their data by private companies and if they believe it is not being used for the intended purpose of informing patients about the NHS services they offer and that they are CQC registered, contact the company who has published it and ask for it to be removed. The provider referred to in this example has removed specific practice pages when asked.