Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to negotiate a data sharing agreement with the EU to access doctor malpractice data held on the Internal Market Information system.

Government officials recently met with the United Kingdom professional regulator of doctors, the General Medical Council (GMC), to discuss what more could be done to strengthen and improve the exchange of information between the GMC and other UK healthcare professional regulators, and their European Union counterparts. We are committed to a constructive relationship with Europe and will continue to identify areas where closer collaboration is mutually beneficial, including improving information sharing and strengthening health security. The UK has not had recent discussions on the Internal Market Information system with the EU, although the Department is exploring options to further support UK healthcare professional regulators to unblock data sharing barriers.