Summary redaction is the removal of personal detail from the note a clinician writes after a video consultation. Regulation 17(2)(c) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 requires a registered provider to keep an accurate, complete, and contemporaneous record for each service user. GMC Good medical practice, in force since 30 January 2024, sets the same expectation on the individual doctor. anonym.plus clears the identifiers from the reuse copy on your device, so the clinical wrap-up still teaches.
When this applies
After each consultation a short write-up captures the complaint and the plan. It normally names the patient inline. The signed original stays in the record under Regulation 17. It is the teaching or audit copy that gets stripped first.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Load one summary or a whole folder into anonym.plus.
- It scans the body for names, dates, places, and contacts.
- Drugs, findings, and instructions stay; only identifiers get flagged.
- Confirm each flag, then redact or swap it.
- Save the clean write-up with no network call.
What you need to provide
- The note as TXT, DOCX, PDF, or pasted text.
- An operator: Redact for audit, Replace for teaching.
- Optional allow-list to keep your own phrases.
Patient data entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | patient Leo Marsh → [PATIENT] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | follow-up 18 Apr → [DATE] |
| Contact | PHONE_NUMBER | mobile +44 7700 900 714 → [PHONE] |
| Location | LOCATION | home in Leeds → [PLACE] |
| NHS number | NHS_NUMBER | NHS 512 345 6789 → [NHS_NO] |
| Names | PERSON | Dr Patel → [CLINICIAN] |
Compliance achieved
- Removes health detail that is special category data under UK GDPR Art. 9(1).
- Leaves the signed original intact, as Regulation 17(2)(c) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 requires.
- Matches the record-keeping expectation in GMC Good medical practice, in force since 30 January 2024.
- Reuse rests on the same DPA 2018 Schedule 1, Part 1, paragraph 2 condition the clinic already relies on.
- Respects the common-law duty of confidence by keeping the note inside your organisation.
- On-device AES-256-GCM guards the working files.
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Limitations & cautions
These wrap-ups are short and written quickly. A nickname or an inline place can hide in a single line. Review the flags before you export. Terse notes give the tool fewer grammatical cues than a long record.
Frequently asked questions
How does redaction differ from full anonymisation?
Redaction pulls the fields you select, which is enough for a minimum-necessary disclosure. Full anonymisation is stricter: it removes every identifier so the output leaves UK GDPR scope under Recital 26. Most teaching copies only need the first, but a published dataset needs the second.
Does redaction put me in breach of Regulation 17?
No, as long as the original stays. Regulation 17(2)(c) is about the provider holding an accurate, complete, contemporaneous record. De-identifying a separate review copy sits alongside that duty rather than replacing it.
Can I clean a day's worth of summaries at once?
Yes. Point the tool at a folder and it works through each file locally, with the same operator and allow-list applied to every one.