The Health Bill second reading at the House of Commons has attracted a number of questions and comments from MPs around data privacy, modernisation, technology, health inequalities, and the Single Patient Record.
Introducing the Bill, secretary of state for health and social care James Murray answered questions from those in attendance, highlighting ambitions “through local health watches across the country…to bring the voice of patients closer to the people who plan and deliver services”. The Bill is intended to modernise the NHS and reduce inequalities, Murray continued. “As a Labour Government, our priority is to boost investment and to modernise the NHS for the future. It is exactly that combination of investment and reform that will deliver the health service that constituents need and deserve.”
Murray also spoke on the need to build on progress from the last two years with accelerated transformation and modernisation, citing his determination to ensure the NHS benefits from the “fullest possible” use of tech, digitisation, and AI. “The changes in technology, digitisation, and AI are not an add-on to the NHS’s core business,” he acknowledged. “With a determined focus on driving innovation at every level and the confidence to reimagine our approach to the nation’s health for the modern world, they offer us the chance to transform the way the entire NHS works. They will improve the speed of diagnosis, helping people to get the right treatment much more quickly than they do today.”
Changes put forward in the Bill hope to streamline tasks for NHS staff, “freeing them from admin and bureaucracy to focus their energy on caring for patients”, and transforming the patient experience, Murray continued. “For many years, patient groups have warned about the pitfalls and shortcomings of fragmented information systems in the NHS, and they are absolutely right.”
Investment made in the Single Patient Record will improve the linking of information across systems, Murray noted, referring to the programme as “nothing short of a game changer”. When challenged on data privacy and security, he added that the Single Patient Record “does not move data from one system to another; it preserves the data where it is, and builds links between systems so that one person, whether a clinician or a patient, can see all the data at once”. The “highest levels of security” will be in place, he went on, with only authorised individuals able to access data, an audit trail recording who has accessed records, and the “strongest available” cyber security protections. It will be delivered through a range of different contracts to ensure it works in the interests of clinicians and patients, he added.
The Bill sets out to empower those with local expertise with the power, resources, and flexibility required to design and deliver health services for their area, Murray says. “Under the Bill, ICBs will have more direct responsibility for their services than ever before. They will be at the heart of integrating health and social care, and they will include those people responsible for housing, transport and jobs, so that we can tackle the root causes of ill health, which is better both for patients and for the NHS.”
Wider trend: NHS transformation, innovation, and reform
The Department of Health and Social Care has published an impact statement noting the rationale behind many of the key measures introduced in the 10-Year Plan, covering potential impact, costs, benefits, and risks. The single patient record will take several years, and costs will include product development, tech and data integration, delivery, implementation, and commercial costs, it states. When it comes to AI, the adoption and scaling of new tech will mean upfront costs and funding. The DHSC shares that the government is backing three UK research projects by investing £37.5 million in a Research Ventures Catalyst programme looking at how AI can target hard-to-treat diseases and improve diagnosis and treatment. Risks include slow uptake and implementation delays due to upfront costs. Patients could benefit from increased face-to-face time with clinicians, the DHSC states, which is supported by data emerging from NHS-funded pilots with areas such as Ambient AI.
The UK government has published its roadmap for modern digital government, an action plan bringing together integral products, platforms, and transformation initiatives to demonstrate how digitalisation across the government is improving public services, increasing accessibility, and promoting value for money. The roadmap aims to deliver on five themes: easier lives, faster growth, firmer foundations, smarter organisations, and higher productivity and efficiency, with progress being tracked through activity levels, delivery of projects and commitments, and outcomes such as user satisfaction. “We’ve identified an opportunity of £45 billion in potential savings and productivity benefits for the whole public sector,” the government states. “We’ll start by measuring central government departments’ contributions to this by tracking the digital efficiencies they’ve identified by the end of the spending review period.”
The government has updated its Cyber Action Plan, to tackle “critically high” cyber risk as part of the Roadmap for Modern Digital Government, looking to move toward proactive action, clear accountability, mandatory requirements, and comprehensive central support. £210 million has been invested in forming a new Government Cyber Unit, to provide direction and expert support. The government shares findings from the first year of GovAssure, its cyber security scheme for assessing government critical systems, noting “significant gaps” in departments’ cyber security and resilience, and levels of low maturity with asset management, protective monitoring, and response planning. “Nearly a third (28 percent) of the government technology estate is estimated to be legacy technology, and therefore highly vulnerable to attack,” it states.
