Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to create a database for people who have permanently implanted medical devices, including details on the type of device.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review recommended that “a central patient-identifiable database should be created by collecting key details of the implantation of all devices at the time of the operation. This can then be linked to specifically created registers to research and audit the outcomes both in terms of the device safety and patient reported outcomes measures”. The Government accepted this recommendation.

In 2021/22, we worked with partners in the healthcare system to scope, test and cost methods of achieving a United Kingdom-wide medical device information system. This explored establishing national systems, expanding clinical registries and approaches to electronically tracking implanted medical devices at the point of care. We aim to publish an update on the implementation of the Review’s recommendations, including work on a medical device information system, in summer 2022.