NHS App: Medical Records

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely correct. Digital resource is well sought after. I was approving something just the other day which gives us more flexibility in that space, because sometimes you have to pay over and above to get people on it. As we all agree, this is vital to the future of what we are trying to do.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, as more people who are able to are switching between the National Health Service and private medical care for specific operations, is the Minister confident that relevant information is then transferred back to a single patient record? This will be very important if, for instance, somebody needs emergency care or is involved in an accident. Is the data all being kept in one place?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Patient records is what the federated data platform is very good at, in terms of drawing data and information from all sorts of sources into one place, so it is always in the ownership of the person, the GP or the individual place. You can make your data available to the private care providers, if you are having an operation with them, for instance, but the data always remains within the NHS and in the ownership of the person.