Medical Records (Confidentiality)
Debate between Dan Poulter and George Mudie(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and he is right to highlight the fact that we are talking about an evolutionary process. The health and social care information centre is not a sudden revolution. It will allow better use of information to join up care in exactly the way that he describes. It is no good having a £3.8 billion integration fund for better provision of services unless we have the right information and can join up intelligence to understand what good care looks like.
Mr Mudie
The two professionals in the Chamber are having an interesting conversation, but the public want to know whether the Minister is content, first, that the use of personal data will not lead to the identification of individuals and, secondly, with the present system of consultation on opting-out.
Dr Poulter
We already have robust procedures in place, and they will exist under the new system to protect patient confidentiality. I would describe them in more detail if I had more time, but it is worth highlighting some of the history. It is not revolutionary to store information; it is evolutionary. Hospital episode statistics started being collected in the following care settings in, I believe, the following years: in-patient data in 1989, out-patient data in 2003, A and E data in 2007-08, and primary care data from 2014.
We already have systems for collecting and analysing information, and patient safeguards exist in those systems. We will now see a system that better joins up and builds that evidence base to drive better care for patients, which is exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk made. We need to expand the evidence base, and it is absolutely right that we ensure patient confidentiality when doing so. I believe that we have the right safeguards in place to do that.
A number of points have been raised in the debate, and I will write to hon. Members with further clarification. I hope that that will be helpful.