Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the two recommendations for best practice by the NHSX set out in the report entitled Foundations of Fairness, Where next for NHS health data partnerships, published in March 2020.

The Centre for Improving Data Collaboration is working with Understanding Patient Data to operationalise the findings from the Foundations of Fairness report, working with a range of other partners in the data-driven innovation space to best understand how these recommendations can be put into practice.

It will also lead the drive for transparency by reporting annually on the partnerships it has supported, and the research enabled through its work - detailing the impact on patients, the National Health Service and the taxpayer. In addition, the Centre will ensure equity across the innovation ecosystem by making sure partnerships do not exacerbate health inequalities, and where possible mitigate them, through building capability, facilitating collaborative working and determining approaches for fair value distribution.

NHSX has also produced clear information governance guidance to empower health and care professionals to share information to support the pandemic which is available on a dedicated online portal.