Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what consideration she has given to a centralised approach to Information Governance to reduce variation in digital communication methods and practices between NHS Trusts.

There is an NHS Information Governance portal, which provides a single, consistent national source of information governance guidance for health and social care providers. NHS England has a working group to check and challenge the guidance, which includes representatives of the Information Commissioner's Office and the Office of the National Data Guardian.

It is for each trust, as controller, to decide how they communicate with their patients. We have produced national guidance on texting, emailing, and messaging patient and service users to support organisations with information governance requirements. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/information-governance/guidance/texting-emailing-and-messaging-patients-and-service-users/guidance-for-patients-and-service-users