Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve the recording and sharing of NHS data to assist to improve care for patients and scientific research.

The Government recognises the important role that health and care data plays in improving care, treatment, support and research. We are committed to ensuring the health and social care system in England realises the benefits of sharing data in a safe, secure and legal way.

NHS Digital is the trusted national provider of high quality information and data for health and social care. We are committed to ensuring that the data NHS Digital holds is accessible. We have tasked NHS Digital with a statutory duty in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, to assure the quality of all the data it collects and publishes.

NHS England is working with NHS Digital to develop an information governance framework which will help health and social care organisations to clearly describe activities that require data; justify the legal basis underpinning any data sharing; and, provide assurance around how the data will be protected.

This will provide information to support high quality data sharing applications, agreements and governance. It will also allow local areas to access, link and, where appropriate and safe, share data to enable population health management, while ensuring that its use is proportionate, legal and secure.

We are also committed to supporting research, innovation and improvement through the use of data and information with appropriate regulation that is subject to public scrutiny.