Health Bill

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the very important question of data privacy and security. I will address that in a moment, because I am going to set out some of the protections in our approach to the single patient record, and I think that will exactly answer the questions she raises.

I will make progress, because I am conscious of time. As I have said, the patchy records are not just an annoyance or a source of anxiety or distress; they can also be a risk to patient safety. In other areas of our lives, getting information wrong or not having it immediately available may be an inconvenience; in a health service, the consequences can be profound. What happens to the patient who is rushed to accident and emergency and has complex conditions that require multiple medications, if the emergency team have no way of knowing that? What happens to the dementia patient who cannot keep track of all the different documents from all the different specialists in all the different providers? In today’s NHS, the GP or practice nurse at the clinic, the paramedics stepping through the front door and the consultant at the bedside are doing everything they can to try to solve a puzzle, but without all the pieces. This Bill will change that. It will do so by introducing a new approach—the single patient record—and that is nothing short of a game changer.

[Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new position.

On Wednesday, my Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will publish our report on the Government’s digital ambitions. My right hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that we will be raising serious concerns about data management, data hygiene and vendor lock-in. Many projects such as the single patient record have failed over the last 20 years. Will he confirm to me that he will ensure that patients can control when and how their data is seen, that he will be building on existing records such as the great north care record, and that this will be treated as critical national and sovereign infrastructure, not subject to capture by a single provider such as Palantir?

[James Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is absolutely right to underscore the importance of data security and data privacy. That is essential in building trust in what we are seeking to do.

To be clear, the single patient record, as I was just saying a moment ago in response to the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), does not move data from one system to another; it preserves the data where it is, and builds links between systems so that one person, whether a clinician or a patient, can see all the data at once. The data will still be governed by the same privacy policies on a GP system, in a hospital trust system and so on. When linked together through the single patient record, it will be governed by the highest levels of security: only authorised individuals will be able to access the data, there will be an audit trail of anyone who has accessed it, and the cyber-security protection will be the strongest available.