Health and Social Care Bill

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. In that case I shall not dwell on it at great length. Amendment 40A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, and other noble Lords, would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to promote the use of information derived from patients for research purposes while taking full account of the confidentiality of information. I welcome the intent behind this amendment, but it is in fact unnecessary. We recognise the important role that patient data, if treated carefully and confidentially—and that I hope goes without saying—can play in improving the quality of health research. I spoke earlier about our consultation document An Information Revolution, in which we propose that the most important source of data is the patient’s or the service user’s care record generated at the point of care. Information in these records also provides much of the data needed for other secondary purposes: for commissioners, for managers, for care professionals and, importantly, for research. We are using the responses that we received to the consultation, together with the findings of the NHS Future Forum, to develop an information strategy for health and social care in England. This will highlight how increased transparency and greater access to information supports improvements in care and research. It is the major work stream. I can reassure the noble Lord that we value the use of patient information where confidentiality is appropriately protected as a source of research and that we are looking at ways to embed its use in our information strategy.