Unlocking NHS data requires public trust

If the NHS is broken, as the UK health secretary, Wes Streeting, says,1 better use of data should be part of the remedy. A recent report by Ara Darzi on the state of the NHS rightly notes that health data offer untapped opportunities to enhance care and shift services towards the community.2 Yet history shows this principle is easier stated than achieved.

There is broad agreement that the NHS should use health data more effectively—to treat patients, ease clinicians’ workloads, and find innovative treatments—but progress has been elusive. The NHS remains, as Darzi says, in the “in the foothills of digital transformation,”2 partly owing to a lack of public confidence in the NHS’s ability to use data for secondary purposes that align with public values and deliver public benefit.34

Successive high profile failures, including care.data and General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR),56 have damaged the public’s faith that the NHS can or will protect privacy, or that it will ensure data are used for purposes that fall within the social licence rather than commercial gain. Some 3.46 million people—one …