Draft Health and Social Care Information Centre (Transfer of Functions, Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2023

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Neil O'Brien)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Health and Social Care Information Centre (Transfer of Functions, Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham, and I hope that your throat feels better soon.

To make sure that everyone has the right version of the statutory instrument, I draw the Committee’s attention to the correction slip for the SI, which amends two points:

“Page 3, regulation 5(3)(a): omit “annual”

Page 22, regulation 63(a): “paragraph (b)” should read “paragraph (a)”.

The regulations are intended to transfer the statutory functions of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which operates as NHS Digital, to NHS England, and to wind up NHS Digital. They do that in a relatively straightforward way, using the powers in the Health and Care Act 2022, which allow regulations to transfer the functions of certain bodies to others. Part 1 of the schedule amends primary legislation - chiefly the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which established NHS Digital and set out its statutory functions. Those key functions are transferred to NHS England, unless there is an equivalent function which NHS England already has, or a function is no longer needed, for example, the provisions relating to the board and governance, which will no longer be needed once NHS Digital is abolished.

There are also consequential and transitional provisions, replacing references to the NHS Digital, called the Information Centre, with NHS England in primary legislation, and part 2 of the schedule similarly amends secondary legislation.

The transfer is taking place in response to the recommendations of a November 2021 review entitled “Putting data, digital and tech at the heart of transforming the NHS”. That important review was commissioned by the Government in 2020 and conducted by Laura Wade-Gery, interim chair of NHS Digital and non-executive director of NHS England. The review’s goal was to ensure that the centre of the NHS is able to provide the right leadership and support to integrated care systems to use digital and data more effectively to deliver improved patient outcomes. It called for a realignment of the organisational responsibilities for digital transformation of the NHS, to deliver a new operating model. To achieve that, a specific recommendation was made to consolidate the functions of NHS Digital into NHS England, with an intent to merge legally once legislation enabled that, to help tackle the problem of digital remaining in its own silo and to ensure better alignment with service delivery.

The review’s recommendations were fully accepted by the Government in November 2021. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced on publication of the review that NHS Digital’s functions would be transferred to NHS England as soon as legislation allowed. This SI is the legislation needed to make that happen.

We want to see the excellent work of NHS Digital continue, but we want that to happen within a single central organisation that takes responsibility for all elements of digital transformation and data. As things stand, the functions will transfer unchanged in effect. The transfer, will, however be a critical milestone in making sure our work on digital, data and technology is better aligned with service delivery and patient needs.

We will, of course, be transferring all staff and assets to NHS England at the same time via a separate transfer scheme. The transfer will reduce duplication, bringing the NHS’s national data and technology expertise together into one organisation.

We know that people recognise the value of their data in helping to improve the outcomes from the health service and from social care, but they also want to be reassured, quite rightly, that their personal data is safe. NHS Digital has been an extremely effective guardian of public data, and we will ensure that NHS England, in taking on NHS Digital’s functions, upholds the highest standards of data protection and transparency. The regulations transfer all of the existing safeguards for data, and add to them, by requiring NHS England to have regard to statutory guidance on how it protects people’s data and to report annually specifically on how it has exercised the functions being transferred to it by the SI. Those are new requirements compared with what NHS Digital had to do.

The guidance will recommend NHS England establishes processes and procedures for obtaining independent advice when exercising the transferred data functions. The arrangements for obtaining independent advice should support oversight and scrutiny of the relevant functions of NHS England’s board. NHS England will act transparently, publishing all procedures for when the Secretary of State requests data, or an outside body makes a request, and will publish details of organisations that have been allowed access to data, along with the purpose for that access and the data they have used.

People can have confidence that NHS England will uphold the highest standards of data management, including how it stores, manages, processes and allows access to data. The regulations ensure that by transferring the existing statutory framework of protections and then building on them, and I commend them to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

Some excellent questions have been asked. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley asked about the vision that the proposal is part of. It is certainly the case that there is a process of simplification of organisations, of which the transfer is another major step. The Health and Social Care Act 2022 also gave Ministers powers of direction over NHS England that did not exist before. None the less, that basic operational independence and structure still stands, so there is change but not a wholesale one compared with the 2012 arrangements.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet asked a really important question about interoperability across the UK. As well as trying to promote that in the NHS, a piece of work is being done by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Cabinet Office about comparability of data not just in health, but across the work of Government. I am sure that my hon. Friend would find that interesting.

The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, asked who we have discussed the transfer with, and the answer is that we have discussed it with the devolved Administrations, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the National Data Guardian, medConfidential and, of course, NHS England and NHS Digital. The staff of those latter two organisations have been fully consulted and know all about the plans. In terms of the speed of the merger, the powers in the SI come into effect immediately, so that the merger can take place towards the end of the month.

I am trying to remember the hon. Gentleman’s other question—

[Andrew Gwynne]

Staff involvement.

[Neil O'Brien]

Absolutely. All the staff know about what is happening and have been consulted fully about the streamlining.

The SI will bring together NHS Digital and NHS England. It will not only preserve existing safeguards around people’s data but will establish slightly stronger ones. Effectively, it will deliver the preservation of the existing regime governing data protection as we bring the two organisations together and it will create all the efficiencies that that process will enable. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.