Patient Medical Records

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a timely debate on a very important subject. Does he agree with me that a scheme that is already lacking in public confidence is not helped when Atos has been awarded the contract to extract the data from GP records? Does he agree that that should never have happened?

[Mr Godsiff]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and indeed, I will come to that point later. As I said, we have an opportunity in the next six months to try to get the scheme right. If the Government now address the many concerns raised about privacy, consent and the creeping commercialisation of our health service, they have the opportunity to create a scheme that offers enormous benefit to health care and research. However, if they fail to do that and continue to steamroll ahead, ignoring public concern, in six months’ time they will find themselves in precisely the same place as they are now, faced by massive public opposition to a scheme that has the potential to do so much good and to save lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Godsiff]

Thank you very much, Mr Weir.

The Pulse survey found that as many as one in 12 GPs are considering opting out all of their patients from the scheme, and 33% said that they were undecided. Unless public awareness and GP confidence improves massively in the next six months, we will see huge opt-outs. What would the consequences of that be for the health service? I asked the Minister what would happen if a GP refused to upload patient data. His rather disconcerting reply was that

“NHS England would need to consider whether to take remedial action for breach of contract.”—[Official Report, 25 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 275W.]

Will the Minister tell us whether such remedial action would make it impossible for GPs to continue to practise? Can he guarantee that doctors will not lose their jobs for doing what they believe to be best for their patients by protecting the confidentiality of personal data?

NHS England has said that it is delaying the scheme for six months because it wants to ensure that the public better understands the proposals. That is a hugely arrogant argument. NHS England is basically saying, “Look, we know best. We tried to get this through by stealth but we got found out. We will therefore delay it by six months while we try to explain it better to you, the public. We know best—we understand and you do not.” As I just said in response to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), 87% of the population have considerable concerns about the scheme and do not want their data to be taken outside of the confidentiality agreement that exists between a patient and their doctor.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

No, I have given way on many occasions.

NHS England must start listening. GPs in Birmingham, where my constituency is, have said that they simply do not have time to have a proper conversation with patients about data sharing. GP surgeries are already stretched, and patients struggle to get an appointment within a reasonable time frame. Are we really suggesting that GPs should be talking to patients about the minutiae of a data-sharing scheme when ill people already cannot get an appointment? Would that really be the best use of doctors’ time?

My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) raised the issue of who is going to extract the information, and pointed out that Atos appears to have won the contract. At first, I thought that that was a joke, and I looked at the calendar to check that it was not 1 April. If it is seriously being suggested that Atos, probably the most loathed and inept company operating in the UK, is to be left to extract the data, all I can say is God help the patients of this country. The Department for Work and Pensions has found that 60% of Atos disability assessments have been overturned on appeal. The company is absolutely hopeless. How on earth can the Government award it a contract to extract patient data? I ask the Minister: will it be done in this country, or on the other side of the world? I have no confidence whatever that Atos will be able to retain the confidentiality that patients want.

In conclusion, some people say that the choice is between protecting patient confidentiality and saving lives, but that is a false choice. As I said right at the start of my speech, people such as me who are concerned about the scheme are not against medical research or the provision of information to allow research to go ahead. I am opposed, along with the vast majority of people in this country, to private information about patients being sold off to private companies for private gain. That cannot be right. I urge the Government to look at the issue again and listen to what doctors and patients are saying.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir, I believe for the first time. It is also a pleasure to respond to the debate and the points raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff). I congratulate him on securing the debate, as well as on the keen interest he has shown in the correspondence we have conducted via written questions. We have talked through some of the issues and he has expressed concerns about the importance of patient confidentiality.

I hope today to be able to reassure Members that strong safeguards were put in place by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and that the creation of the Health & Social Care Information Centre was not a sudden event. The process is evolutionary and was debated fully and thoroughly during scrutiny of the Health and Social Care Bill a few years ago. I was a member of the Health and Social Care Bill Committee, as was the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), and it sat for longer than almost any other Committee in the House for more than a decade. It is therefore not correct to say that the issues have not been debated and properly scrutinised in the past, because they absolutely have.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Poulter]

I am not going to give way because of the time. I have not said anything controversial; I am just reiterating the fact that a lot of the issues that have arisen today were discussed at great length during scrutiny of that Bill. The hon. Gentleman will recall that as he made many interventions and speeches in Committee.

We need to highlight the importance of this issue. We must ensure that we have the right data and the right processes in the NHS to inform good care. It is about ensuring that we have the data to improve research, to drive better integration and, in the wake of the Mid Staffs scandal and the Francis inquiry, to ensure transparency in protecting patient confidentiality and in the quality of care provided by health care providers so that we can ensure that high quality care is provided throughout the NHS and that its quality is properly scrutinised. We must learn from examples of good care, and where, by comparison and other standards, care is not good it should be transparently exposed.

There are important research benefits, too. We know that if we want to combat disease, address some of the challenges that we face in the health system and improve our knowledge of diseases from cancer to heart disease, we need to have the right information. We have to ensure that we collect data and information to improve patient care, which is the heart of everything we are talking about today. As long as we do that—I believe that we have the right safeguards in place through the 2012 Act and through the further clarifications and reassurances provided by the amendments to the Care Bill that have been tabled for next week—we are in the right place to deliver improved transparency and care quality while ensuring that we protect patient confidentiality, in which we all believe.