Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much (a) his Department and (b) the NHS has spent on data protection training and guidance for NHS personnel in each of the last three years for which information is available; and what assessment he (i) has made and (ii) plans to make of the effectiveness of that training and guidance.

The Department has not funded any data protection training or guidance for National Health Service personnel during the last three years. However, the Department, working with NHS England, the Health and Social Care Information Centre, Public Health England and other national health and care organisations recently established the Information Governance Alliance to provide a joined up and consistent approach to providing support and guidance to the NHS on a range of information governance issues, including data protection.

Information about how much NHS organisations spend on data protection training is not collected centrally. While NHS organisations are required to provide training to their staff which incorporates key elements of data protection, each organisation is responsible for determining the type and quantity of training and for enduring that it is effective. No assessment of the effectiveness of local training is made centrally.