back to article NHS England warned about plans to extend Covid-era rules for patient data access

A group overseeing UK health data sharing has advised the government not to expand legal rules allowing access to patient information introduced during the Covid pandemic until there has been further public consultation. NHS England's Advisory Group for Data (AGD) was responding to a move by the ruling Labour Party. This …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "NHS England Secure Analytics Service Pilot Directions 2024 "

    It's "Secure" that's the weasel word here. Whose interests are to be secured and from whom?

  2. Tubz Silver badge

    So NHS England want to use and abuse the data and then draw up the rules to suit them, no doubt with the help of some nice American data brokers, sounds about right for a Government Department with staff looking for future nest eggs with private companies.

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Pint

      Sharing all the medical information while completely removing all identification details is likely to help, giving all of us an idea of what is infecting these days and what we need to do to stay safe. Helping the medical researchers determine whats actually happening (not just thinking about what might be happening or seeing little political guesses) is likely to keep us all reasonably safe.

      For example, hearing that there were 10 local COVID infections might make you wear a mask, but 500 COVID infections locally makes you drink beer at home, not in the pub every evening.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Do all down votes have a low-grade fever, muscle aches, headaches, loss of appetite, and loss of taste or smell?

  3. s. pam
    Flame

    Utter boll lox but it will happen!

    More NHS lies and untruths, all in the name of greater data visibiliity which is nothing more than a smokescreen for Pallantir to sniff our medical records!

    I'll believe it the day I can see a Dr in Berks and the information shows up in my local GPs surgery here in So. Bucks so I don't have print a stupid form, hand carry it from one to the other, only to have to make a safety copy before giving it in (less it be lost, again!).

    Until then, boll lox

    1. GeekyOldFart

      Re: Utter boll lox but it will happen!

      There was a valid reason for expanded data sharing during the pandemic - the larger data sets were needed for urgent research. Expanding and extending the same at this point would have value to researchers in the biosciences but has to be carefully scrutinised to make sure exactly what you're concerned about happening can't. This "Whoa, Nellie!" to NHS England is the system working as designed, with an overenthusiastic NHS region being told to step back and make sure they do it right rather than charging ahead.

      As for "I'll believe it when..." nothing referred to by this article will permit your proposed test scenario to "pass" - That's down to failures within the NHS tech infrastructure which this doesn't address.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...raises questions about data governance..."

    No s**t!!!!!

    No mention of Palantir!!!

    "...Streeting said he was directing NHS England to remove from GPs the "burden" of getting patients' consent..."

    There NEVER was a "burden"......the Royal Free Trust just handed over 1.6 million records to Google/Deepmind.....not one citizen provided "consent".....

    - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/03/google-deepmind-16m-patient-royal-free-deal-data-protection-act

    The GDPR was ALWAYS a joke!! Just saying......

    ....and now more of the same!!

  5. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Big Brother

    On the other hand...

    Just just to get a copy of your records to see what's in them!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Move along people, nothing to see, the Government and Civil Service etc can do whatever they want...

    The latest in my own Northern Ireland HSC (i.e. NHS in NI) saga:

    It seems that over quite a few years the NIECR Steering Group has been making decisions about data-protection related aspects of the NIECR. However whilsts the Steering Group contains some members representing some of the Data Controllers for the NIECR it also includes some members from a Data Processor (who obviously cannot lawfully be involved in data-protection related decisions) and some members from orgs that are neither Data Controllers nor Data Processors for the NIECR (and so also cannot lawfully make decisions).

    The meeting quorum for the NIECR Steering Group used to be 60% of members - which (due to numbers) meant any data protection related decisions reached had to involve non-Data Controllers and so therefore were unlawful. They reduced the quorum to 50%+1 at the end of last year which means *if* all the members representing Data Controllers are present and vote for something then quorum can be just met, however if any non-Data Controllers are also involved that would still not be lawful.

    Also note that the Data Controller organisations that have members in the NIECR Steering Group are a very small percentage of the total number of Data Controllers for the NIECR. Data-protection decisions regarding the NIECR cannot lawfully be made unless all the NIECR Data Controllers are involved in the decision making.

    One of the more "interesting" decisions taken by the NIECR Steerig Group in recent years is that in August 2023 they appear to have decided of their own accord that multiple other existing Data Controllers were "suddenly" Data Processors instead. I do not believe this to be lawful as all the then existing Data Controllers, including those affected, would have been required to be involved in any decision making (and as it is governed by a Data Sharing **Agreement** then unless they all agreed to such a change then it couldn't happen).

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