Oral Answers to Questions

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Zeichner has withdrawn, so let us go to the SNP spokesperson.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]]

The Government’s plan to give pharmaceutical firms access to pseudo-anonymised data from GP practices in England is creating public concern and distrust, just like the failed care.data project of 2013. Most patients would be happy to see better communication and information sharing within the NHS, as well as for public health and academic research, but are concerned about commercial access to their data. Will the Minister halt the process to allow time for genuine debate and public consultation?

[Jo Churchill]

The hon. Member and I are both passionate about the use of data to enhance patient care, as she outlined. That is the prize here. We are listening. We are taking our time. The data will only be used for health and care planning and research purposes by organisations that have a legal basis and a legitimate need to use the data. NHS Digital will publish all the details of the data we have shared on our data release register. We want to build confidence. We want to build trust. We are listening, but this is an important agenda that we need to get right to deliver better care for patients.

[Dr Whitford]

The problem is that the plan to allow commercial access is going to undermine the public trust in improving digitisation within the NHS, and the Minister will be aware of that. The current plans apply only to the NHS in England, but can she guarantee that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 will not be used to force commercial access to patient data from Scotland’s NHS? If so, can she explain why the Department for International Trade is advertising access to the health data of 65 million people, which is the population of the whole UK?

[Jo Churchill]

I go back to the answer I gave: we do not allow data to be used for commercial purposes. NHS Digital will not approve requests for data where the purpose is for marketing and so on and so forth. The hon. Member would not expect me to respond on behalf of another Department, but I reiterate that we are communicating and building trust. There will be a public information campaign. We will be working across the professions and across research to make sure that access is appropriate and proportionate. In the Health and Care Bill, we will be redoubling our efforts to make sure people have that confidence.