Anger as private health data is to be sold off to companies and researchers to help fund the NHS
Private health data will be sold off to companies and researchers to help fund the NHS under controversial plans being considered by officials.
The proposals are expected to form part of the Government’s 10-year plan for the health service to be unveiled in the spring by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
While anonymised patient records are already sold, a new ‘National Health Data Service’ will make the currently ‘complicated’ and disjointed process of accessing patient data easier.
But the professor charged with reviewing the sale of medical data has warned that members of the public may find it ‘unpalatable’ having their records bought by multinationals.
The government-backed review into the way data is stored and used by the NHS carried out by Cathie Sudlow, Professor of Neurology and Clinical Epidemiology at Edinburgh university, has called for a central service to control and store information.
The idea is gaining support across Whitehall departments, the Financial Times reported.
The most controversial part of the plan is likely to revolve around the pricing of medical data, which experts have warned will fuel public concern over profiteering from private medical information.
Professor Sudlow said there had already been ‘a lot of thinking and ongoing discussions’ – within the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS and the government body Office for Life Sciences – over the pricing of health data.
Private health data will be sold off to companies and researchers to help fund the NHS under controversial plans being considered by officials (stock photo)
The proposals are expected to form part of the Government’s 10-year plan for the health service to be unveiled in the spring by Health Secretary Wes Streeting (stock photo)
She told the FT the proposals under study would ensure ‘benefits for patients and the public can be realised’.
The data would be anonymised and so cannot be linked to individual patients.
But she said any shift would need to be carefully handled.
‘The idea of large multinational companies profiting off the back of the NHS is not palatable for many people, and the notion of direct data selling doesn’t go down well with the public,’ she said.
Her report warned that ‘undue emphasis on [selling data] damages trust’ in the system.
Mr Streeting has said ‘data is the future of the NHS’ and NHS England awarded a controversial £330million contract to US group Palantir’s technology – sometimes described as ‘spy tech’ has been criticised by human rights groups as capable of being abused to spy on private citizens.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting meeting staff during a visit to London Ambulance Service headquarters in south Londo
While anonymised patient records are already sold, a new ‘National Health Data Service’ will make the currently ‘complicated’ process of accessing patient data easier (stock photo)
The British Medical Association called it ‘deeply worrying’ that the US giant, which has close ties to defence and intelligence agencies in America, the UK and elsewhere, would be handling British patients’ sensitive details.
A paid advisor to Palantir is former Labour MP and peer Tom Watson.
A government spokesman said: ‘We welcome the comprehensive Sudlow Review and are considering the recommendations ahead of the upcoming Spending Review, Life Sciences Sector Plan and 10-Year Health Plan. Our priority will always be to ensure that data is used to benefit patients.’
