NHS Shared Business Services Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Oliver Letwin
Main Page: Oliver Letwin (Independent - West Dorset)Department Debates - View all Oliver Letwin's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hunt
I welcome the hon. Lady to the House. I do not know whether she has done a Health question with me before, but let me say to her that we are assured that the data were not lost: they were kept in a secure setting, which means they were safe, they were not breached and they were not accessed by anyone else. What should have happened, but did not, was passing on the data to the right GP surgery, and that is why we have taken all the steps we have to try to make sure patients are kept safe.
Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend may recall times when we found ourselves in opposition and hoped we had a huge success on our hands, and the image that springs to mind at present is of foxes and shooting them. Does he agree that the Department he so expertly guides now needs to focus its attention on using electronic data for all our citizens and patients, rather than dealing with spurious Opposition problems?
Mr Hunt
As ever, my right hon. Friend is thinking extremely intelligently about the problems we really face. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) asked about the security of the data files, but the security of electronic files is the issue we are going to have to think about much more seriously as we give everyone access to their electronic records, and because of the known issues around hacking. This is an issue we are taking very seriously and doing more work on.