NHS Patient Data
Debate between Grahame Morris and Nadine Dorries(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate, which is raising some important issues that we need clarity on. We have just come from a seminar in which the Health Committee had some expert witnesses. Does she agree with the conclusions put forward there about the need for clarity before we go ahead with this data collection? I am thinking particularly about the cyber-security review, safeguards on anonymous or pseudo-anonymous data, separating out purposes for controls, a tighter definition of the care data—
Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)
Order. Mr Morris, this is a 30-minute debate, so can you keep your intervention short, please?
Grahame M. Morris
My hon. Friend is being very generous about interventions. Again, she makes an excellent point. We need an effective audit trail. If these data sets are being sold on, we need some effective control. That should be stopped. I hope that the Minister—
Grahame M. Morris
The Minister is arguing that the scheme is an extension of what happened before, but there is clearly a quantum difference. There is general agreement that it is a wonderful thing to have data sets for research and public health purposes. The difficulty that the public have, about which we need to restore confidence, is when that information is being used for marketisation—for marketing purposes—by commercial reusers. I am not reassured by the Minister’s comments, but he has an opportunity to correct the problem in the House of Lords.
Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)
Order. Mr Morris, that is a very long intervention.