Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason his Department does not keep a centralised record of implanted medical devices which would allow the effective future identification of all affected patients in case of faults or risks being identified; and if he will take steps to create such a database.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) review update published in December 2022 outlines our next steps in this area, including taking forward the NHS England outcomes registries programme in England. NHS England are working to expand the coverage and breadth of existing outcome registries which will deliver data collections that contain patient, device and outcome-level data. Exemplar registries already record 600,000 to 700,000 patients a year with device details.

As set out in the IMMDS update, the aim is to increase outcome registry coverage from 15% to 80% of Class III implants and Class IIb therapeutic devices over the next three years. The outcome registries will allow traceability and patient outcome data to be gathered for priority medical specialties and therapeutical areas, prioritised according to patient and clinic risk. The outcome registries will be unified under one platform.

We are in discussions with the devolved Governments to develop a United Kingdom wide approach that will enable secure data sharing, system interoperability and coverage where it is appropriate to do so.