Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the sharing of data across health and social care.

The Government is committed to championing the safe use of data, enabling data to flow in a lawful, secure and appropriate way to improve outcomes for patients.

Sharing data offers immense promise for improving the National Health Service and social care system, as well as benefitting individuals through unlocking new treatments and medical breakthroughs and driving up quality and safe care that improves outcomes and lives.

On 25 May 2018 the Government launched the new national data opt-out which gives people the choice of how their confidential patient information will be used beyond their direct care.

NHS England has chosen five initial areas to become Local Health and Care Record Exemplars. These exemplars will support delivery of efficient and effective individual care. They will also provide a platform to explore the potential for the use of individual data – in an anonymised form – to support other functions, such as population health management and research.