New data strategy launched to improve patient care

A new draft data strategy will soon be published outlining new patient rights to access their health records, as the NHS builds on power of data used to save lives during the pandemic.

Over the last 18 months, data has saved lives and helped ensure the NHS could provide better care to people suffering from coronavirus and other health issues, ensuring doctors and nurses could deliver innovative support in the most effective and efficient way.

By empowering frontline staff to share data for patient care in a secure way that preserves privacy, ground-breaking clinical trials were approved in record time. New services to care for people in their own homes were set up via remote digital monitoring, avoiding lengthy hospital stays.

This enabled rapid research into coronavirus treatments such as dexamethasone, which has saved over a million lives across the world. By rapidly speeding up the process to grant approvals for trials to get underway – which previously would have taken around 100 days - and giving researchers access to data in a safe and secure way, this world-leading trial led to the discovery of the first proven treatment to reduce coronavirus mortality.

The proposed strategy will ensure people are able to view their medical records, and empower them to keep a track of their health information.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Data saves lives. We need to learn from the pandemic to improve the way our health and care system processes data, giving power to patients and enabling clinicians to use data in new ways to improve patient care and support research for innovative treatments. This pandemic has shown us just how many lives can be saved through effective use of data. We must do all we can to harness this potential and the changes brought about through this strategy will no doubt go on to save countless more lives in the future.”