Health Bill

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

I will focus on two things: the changes in data privacy and access to support a centralised single patient record, and the abolition of Healthwatch.

Healthwatch is not the same as the other regulators and it should not be amalgamated. Regulators can be amalgamated only if they have a single purpose and a single viewpoint. Healthwatch today is not a regulator but a patient advocate and there are no others in the system. Without Healthwatch, the remainder of the checks and balances come from the medical profession and the health establishment—and we have seen cases where that goes wrong. Healthwatch guards against that. It is a vital body to speak up for the patient, rather than the NHS itself.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

I have had a look at the parliamentary record; Healthwatch has been mentioned over 100 times in the past five years. One key area of focus is its reporting and the insights it provides to Members of Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that whatever replaces Healthwatch must retain that research focus?

[Martin Wrigley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. We heard earlier how Kevin Dixon of Devon gives us excellent reports of what is happening with Healthwatch.

The modern NHS must run on data, but critically, on data that carries the consent of patients. A single patient record is undeniably critical to see the data of patients all in one place, but it must be built from a patient’s point of view, not from a centralised data-analysis point of view, and with privacy by design from day one. We obviously need GPs to see hospital data and vice versa, and ambulances to see everything that they need to help, but we do not need the new regulation to do that.

The single patient record already exists in a federated model; in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Shropshire and more, trusts already run interoperable access for care services, GPs and hospitals. The Government admit that but claim it is partial and fragmented. They also claim that the data will remain in the systems where it currently exists. However, with the Bill, the Government are asking to remove all protection of patient data—look at proposed new sections 250E(1) and (3) to the National Health Service Act 2006 as set out in clause 47(2) of the Bill. We are asked to trust somewhere below primary legislation that it will all be okay—we should trust the regulation. It is a big-tech approach to deliver an overreaching centralised system, rather than a distributed interoperable solution.

NHS England has ignored and discounted UK sovereign systems that can and do provide what is required along with patient trust. Systems built over years with focus on patient treatment and defined use cases could be rolled out today with no change required in law and privacy by design built in from day one. Greater Manchester and others have the single patient record capability and the hard-won foundation of trust.

I will be tabling amendments to remove the relaxation of data privacy from the Bill. The measures are unnecessary if NHS England does not follow the Palantir advice and instead follows what has been proven to work in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Shropshire and many other places. Perhaps it is an example of something that has worked in Manchester that might work everywhere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I know of a quite frail diabetic patient with cancer, who underwent several operations as well as complicated chemo in London. He eventually decided that he was well enough to take a short holiday, so he went to Cornwall on the train. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving he was found in a state of collapse by his daughter, and taken to the nearest hospital late on a Saturday night. The doctors had no access to his medical notes, and no answer when they called the hospital in London, so they were puzzled. That situation is familiar to doctors. Patients are incredulous when they are told that we are unable to see all their medical records: “Surely everything is on the computer?”

As a surgeon before becoming an MP, I worked in at least three different hospitals. There was no compatibility between the records, which meant that transferring care was complicated and hazardous. I would be asked to advise on a patient from another hospital, relying on a dictated note from the referring doctor, but I could not access the clinical records, the results of investigations such as the pathology test, scans or, crucially, the operating records. Consultations were delayed as I stared at creaking computers, with numerous software programmes, each individually protected by ever-changing and forgettable passwords, that slowly booted up. That obviously needs to change.

I would link the NHS number to an unique single patient record. I would give ownership of the record to the patient, and let the patient be the custodian and the gatekeeper. That is the truly revolutionary idea. If someone could easily look at their medical record, with appropriate physician safeguards, they could monitor everything—blood pressure, heart rate—and perhaps there would be an incentive for them to look after their health a little better.

Let us imagine for a moment the power of anonymised medical data for a population of 70 million people. The NHS is perhaps the largest complete set of health data on a whole population in the world. That is a huge resource for informing health policy and medical research. By tracking the health outcomes of millions of our fellow citizens, we can sort out all kinds of diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders. I can think of no greater innovation, or more helpful measure to improve the health care of this nation, than a single patient record.

[Martin Wrigley]

All the features that the hon. Member is asking for are available to people within the Greater Manchester area. Exactly those things are there and work today, even down to the remote monitoring he mentions.

[Peter Prinsley]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I am aware that in various bits of the country such systems do exist. I would like to see a single patient record that is genuinely single, so that when my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is sitting next to me, writes something in the record, I can see it, and when I write in my record, he can see it, and no letters are passing back and forth between us. That is why I am sure that legislating for the mandatory single record is what we must do, and as a surgeon who has worked for 40 years in the NHS, I will do everything I can to help.