Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, (a) whether her Department has assessed the risk that allowing individual GP practices discretion over the scope of proxy access granted to parents and guardians of children aged 11 to 15 results in inconsistent access to health information across England; (b) what assessment she has made of the risk that parents and guardians may be excluded from their child's records where local practice policy requires the child's real-time telephone consent and the child is unable to provide this independently, including where the child is autistic or has another condition affecting their ability to do so; and (c) what steps her Department is taking to mitigate these risks.

There is guidance from NHS England for GP practices on using GP electronic records which cover arrangements for young people, and which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/digital-gp-good-practice-guidance/

There is also guidance available from the Royal College of General Practitioners.

These are designed to provide a consistent approach to proxy access, balancing the management of risks and ensuring good clinical governance.