https://healthandcaredatasharing.blog.gov.uk/about/
About health and care data sharing
We need to improve the way we share data about patients and those who use care services. The opportunities and benefits of appropriate data sharing have been acknowledged by all to enable the quality and safety of services to be monitored, measured and improved, but people have to trust that their information is properly safeguarded.
The government has committed to making improvements to the system to minimise how much identifiable information is used for any purpose other than the care of an individual and to ensure that there is a clear lawful basis for all uses of information and robust controls are in place to prevent security breaches or misuse of information.
We have a vision that over the medium term (within, say, three to five years):
- access to data will be more automated so that routine functions, including many commissioning functions, will not require access to identifiable data itself
- the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) will be the environment for holding identifiable data at the national level with a number of other smaller safe havens able to access identifiable data for these purposes
- consent will be used more widely as the means to share information.
This blog is about our consultation on regulations to support part of that vision – strengthening the controls over the use of information when it is not being used for the direct care of an individual. It is also be a good opportunity for you to ask questions and spark discussions about this programme of work.