Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Bethell
The noble Lord asks an excellent question but I am afraid that those statistics are not available in my wonderful briefing. I will try to track down the numbers and write to him with whatever information is available.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Conservative manifesto promised a good expansion of data sharing across government. We all know that there are many advantages of doing that, as well as the need for a number of safeguards. If, for example, the health and medical records of Windrush people had been available to the Home Office, it might have been easy to establish how long many of those people had been in the country. Does the Department of Health have clear rules about the sharing of public data with other departments?
Lord Bethell
The arrangements for sharing between departments are overseen by the Information Commissioner. The rules are set by a combination of the digital health technology standards set by NHSX and guidance given to practitioners through the data security and protection toolkit. These provide the rules for inter-departmental sharing; I would be glad to provide copies to the noble Lord if that would be helpful.