UK health data strategy set to embed pandemic emergency measures
By Josh Lowe on 08/04/2021
Data sharing at clinician level has improved during the pandemic, noted Matthew Gould, chief executive of NHSX. Credit: Mart Productions/Pexels
A forthcoming data strategy from NHSX, the UK’s digital health unit, will advocate for some emergency changes implemented during the pandemic to be sustained, the organisation’s chief executive Matthew Gould told an event on Wednesday.
Speaking at an online session hosted by the London-based Institute for Government think tank, Gould said that the unit’s health and social data strategy will “lock in some of the benefits that we’ve seen over the past year”. While some rules are “appropriate only to an emergency”, he said, others “have a really serious benefit and don’t lead to inappropriate or unsafe use of patient data, and we’ll want to lock them in.”