Ministers to legislate for more power over patient data

Ministers are to legislate more powers over how data on patients is collected and are imposing a 'duty' on the NHS to share patient information when doing so would benefit the system. 

The Health and Social Care Act 2021 already allows for sharing of data on an individual basis but staff have reported finding it hard to share it when it comes to primary and secondary care and administrative purposes. 

The new draft strategy produced by NHSX, has suggested it may want to use cloud storage to create a set of “structured data records” with the idea that it would make it easier for patients to access their own data. 

Read full story. (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 22 June 2021