My Lords, having spoken on just about every police Bill in this House for the past 23 years, I am afraid that I could not let this amendment pass without comment. I refer your Lordships to my policing interests in the register.
As my noble friend Lady Brinton has just said, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which has just gone through this House, had provisions that gave the police and other criminal justice bodies investigating possible serious violence, or plans to produce serious violence, the power to demand the confidential medical data of individuals. As drafted, unspecified police officers —that means any police officer, not just a senior ranking officer—could make requests to a GP’s surgery or a CCG, or their staff, to hand over the data.
What I found chilling was that the police would not be required to explain to the patient’s GP why they wanted the information, or whether the patient concerned was a potential criminal or possible victim—or even someone associated with the investigation, for example a possible witness or family member. After discussions with Peers, the General Medical Council, Ministers and the British Medical Association, the Government made their own amendments, making it clear that the police would not have this universal access to patient data. Instead, they would have to use the current, traditional method of approaching a patient’s GP directly and asking for the data, with the decision being made by the GP under the GMC code of ethics, as my noble friend Lady Brinton explained.
New Section 14Z61 gives the new integrated commissioning boards a duty to hand over personal medical data to a wide range of bodies that request them. However, I will focus on paragraphs (g) and (h), which are about police requests for data when they are undertaking criminal investigations. It is even more extraordinary that a health Bill is proposing to give the police even wider powers than in the recent police Bill. At least that Bill originally limited access to cases of serious violence. I will quote my noble friend from 25 October 2021, in debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill:
“It is quite extraordinary that this Bill proposes that any Home Secretary can, at will, demand that doctors and other healthcare professionals breach patient confidentiality, over and above their responsibilities of confidentiality to their patients and their commitments to their regulatory body.”—[Official Report, 25/10/21; col. 551.]
Noon
This Bill proposes giving police those powers for any criminal investigation. It is absolutely wrong. I refer your Lordships to recent police cases of sexual assault, where we know they have also trawled victims’ telephones and computer data for any information they can find. Would these clauses allow similar fishing expeditions on their private and confidential medical
data? Would they also apply to those who might be loosely associated with potential criminals? What about family members? Is it intended that their data be similarly trawled? Where does this end? This entire clause breaches an individual’s right to their medical data being kept confidential, other than in exceptional circumstances. It removes the power from the individual’s GP to make such a decision in exceptional circumstances. Worse, it enables commissioning staff and directors at an ICB to be required to hand over data to the police without the knowledge of the GP. It is totally unacceptable, and I entirely support this amendment.