Health and Care Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendments 60 and 116, and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Brinton and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on their persistence in pressing these two items, because they are extremely important. I also thank the Minister for his engagement, both on the Floor of the House and in extensive correspondence. This has been really quite a complicated trail. I feel as though we have been in a maze where we have had to follow a bit of string, finding the way through into data governance in the NHS.

We have had to follow certain key principles, which we all share and which the Minister has expressed, including the protection of privacy, the right of opt-out, the value of health data and, above all, the imperative to retain public trust. Given the importance of the new ICB regime, I very much hope that the Minister will be able to comprehensively answer my noble friend’s questions.

But if we have taken the time to get to this point of really understanding—or beginning to understand—the kind of data governance that the ICBs will be subject to, it raises the question of what future guidance will be in place. I very much hope that the Minister can absolutely give us the assurance that there will be new, clear guidance, along the lines I hope he is going to express in response to my noble friend, as soon as possible, especially given the speeding up of the electronic patient record programme, as my noble friend Lady Brinton said. That is, of course, desirable, but it has to be done in a safe manner.