Government Vision on Prevention

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the question. On learning disabilities and autism, I know that the Secretary of State has been very moved by some of the cases that he has become aware of since taking the job in the summer. He has instigated not only serious incident reviews into individual cases but a thematic review by the CQC, with contributions from NHS England, on how to improve the system and ensure that we move more services out of in-patient facilities and into the community. I am absolutely confident—I will confirm this to the noble Baroness—that the best providers, from wherever they are, will be able to contribute to that review.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of UCLPartners and business ambassador for healthcare and life sciences. In repeating the Statement, the Minister focused on the important opportunities provided by genomics and the application of artificial intelligence to transform the landscape for prevention. In answer to a previous question, he identified the importance of trust for the ability to marshal this vast amount of deeply personal data and ensure that it can be appropriately applied for individual benefit and, more broadly, population benefit. In that regard, I make two points to the Minister.

First, what progress has been made towards achieving that social licence which will ensure broad trust with regard to the mechanisms available and the security of the structures, not only for data collected in hospital but now in the community and the prevention setting, so that it may be shared and applied for individual as well as population benefit? Secondly, there will need to be a substantial investment in skills to ensure that not only professionals who work in healthcare for the delivery of health services but those who will have to engage more broadly in the prevention agenda are able to respond to this vast amount of data, and help individual citizens and patients apply it for maximum benefit.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

On the question of trust and social licence, which is a very good expression, KPMG published a report in September which found that the NHS was the most trusted organisation in the country when it came to looking after people’s data. That is a very precious thing and we must not lose it, so a number of steps are being taken to try to reinforce that degree of trust. We have introduced a national data opt-out and very recently had the national data guardian Bill, which puts the National Data Guardian on a statutory footing to provide that security and statutory guidance to government, so that we can ensure we build on that trust. On investment in skills, we have commissioned Eric Topol to carry out a review of the skills needed in the workforce to adopt new technology, which will report soon. We also have to recruit new professions: it turns out that bioinformatics is one of the most important things to have in taking advantage of that. We do not currently train enough people in that field but we need to ensure that we do, so that every patient and every clinician can take advantage.