Identifiable information and journal submissions

This comes after an incident in which, during the peer review process after journal submission, UCL and UCLH researchers were asked to provide further information about each research subject in the form of a supplementary table. The table contained information from which a significant number of UCLH patients could have been identified.    

The journal asserted it is the responsibility of authors to ensure that they do not provide information that could potentially identify patients, however agreed to put in place stronger processes for reviewing supplementary tables in publications.  

The incident was reported to the Information Commissioner which concluded no further action would be taken.