NHS App: Medical Records

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct. While I think everybody would say that 90% digitisation is pretty good—it is not 100%, but it is pretty good—always making sure people are talking to each other is often the issue. I am sure we have all had examples of that. That is what the federated data platform helps to do, in terms of drawing it all in. For example, Chelsea and Westminster has put what was on 10 different spreadsheets and records into one place. We are getting a lot better at that, but is it perfect and seamless? No, there is still some work to be done.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, given the importance of medical research, for the development of advances in knowledge and for inward investment into this country in research, what consideration is being given to ensuring that patients in different disease groups can be asked whether they would consent to being informed about clinical studies that may be relevant to their condition? This is so that pre-consent to being approached is being built into the system, because we know that one of the big delays in recruitment into clinical studies is the process of case finding and consent, particularly for less common conditions and when patients are living in more rural and remote areas.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

It is fair to say that we have made massive improvements. At the beginning of the year, we only had around 10% of patients with GP records available in the app but today it is 80%, which is a massive change. That allows us to do things like “Be Part of Research” which we have had hundreds of thousands of people volunteer for. We have not yet taken it to the next stage, so that you can get ahead of the curve for approvals for certain types, as the noble Baroness said, but the beauty of all this is that it gives all the opportunities for the future. As it is my last time standing up this year, I would like to finish by wishing everyone a happy Christmas.