NHS Digital: Primary Care Medical Records

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s reply, especially hearing that this is all to be put back until 1 September. That is a very good decision, because we have heard that patients have not been able to get their GP to accept the information on the form for them to opt out of the proposed system. The system is not working at the moment, and we are very concerned. There was a thought that the system would be anonymised, but that is not what is proposed. It is pseudo-anonymisation, with NHS Digital having the capacity to identify individuals. There is no capacity for people to unanonymise. It needs a really thorough rethink. I very much congratulate—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

Could I ask the noble Baroness to ask her question?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am enormously grateful for the noble Baroness’s endorsement of our decision to delay the rollout. As the absolute epitome of the patient safety cause, she knows more than anyone the importance of data to that cause. I completely endorse the points she made.