A growing population, an ageing population, the rise of co-morbidities and the necessary drive to improve the quality of care and treatments available to patients means that the future success of the NHS will increasingly rely on the data to which it has access. Care.data is designed to link together medical records from general practice with data from hospital activity and eventually extending to cover all care settings inside and outside of hospital.
The improvement of healthcare in England in the future depends upon removing the barriers between primary and secondary care, between the GP surgery and the district general hospital and between social care providers and traditional health care providers. Integration is key to meeting the needs of patients in the future and the availability of integrated data is central to shaping the services that will meet these needs.
It’s in this context that the need for care.data should be seen. Labour supports the principle behind it, but not the way this government is going about it. Ministers will only receive our backing if they amend the Care Bill currently passing through Parliament to agree to three clear safeguards.
Content from our partners
