NHS Federated Data Platform

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Gentleman for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for giving us the opportunity to think about and discuss this important issue.

Central to my contribution is the issue of trust, which the hon. Gentleman also referred to. We stand at a crossroads in the history of our national health service. For too long our frontline staff—the very heartbeat of our communities—have been battling a 21st-century crisis with 20th-century tools. They are held back by fragmented systems that do not speak to one another, waiting lists that remain stubbornly high, and expectations and red tape that are obstacles to actually practising medicine and helping our people.

I want to look at the issue of trust. The federated data platform represents a significant opportunity for change. By connecting trusts and boards, we are not just moving numbers on a screen; we are making sure that surgery happens sooner rather than later. The DUP supports the maximisation of technology, but we will never support the compromise of trust. Protecting health and protecting rights must go hand in hand.

I have three issues and three requests to raise with the Minister. On local control and accountability, there must not be a Big Brother database in Whitehall. Each hospital trust must remain the master of its own house, acting as the sole controller of its data. Can the Minister provide assurance that private partners are mere processors, locked out from selling our data or using it to train their own models?

Secondly, on compromising security, with the rise in cyber-threats, good enough is no longer enough. The Government must ensure that privacy-enhancing technology promised to us is not just a secondary feature, but a robust, audited shield that keeps personal identities anonymous.

Thirdly, on patient empowerment, my vision for the NHS is one where every citizen can access and input into their own medical record online. Data should empower the patient, not just the system. We have heard concerns about the choice of suppliers and the ethics of data sharing. We must be certain that we have solutions to those concerns and not just hope that it will work.

To conclude, the DUP—and I as its health spokesperson—wants Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom to lead the world in e-health. We will only do so if we can look every patient in the eye and say, “Your data is safe, your privacy is absolute, and your care is our only priority.” I look to the Minister and the Government to understand that fully and to agree to those three principles.