Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 8 June 2021 (HL Deb cols 1219–20), what improvements they have made to the process for patients opting out of their medical data being used for research and planning; and how each patient can see where data about them are used.

Whilst no recent changes have been made to the patient opt-out process, we are considering further engagement with the public, patients, service users, staff and stakeholders. This will include raising awareness of the opt-out system, with the aim of making the process simpler and more transparent and how tools such as a transparency statement could help patients understand how their data is used. We will provide further details in the data strategy for health and social care, due for publication in spring 2022.