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Health and Care Data Donor Bank is key talking point at Health Service Journal roundtable

22nd September 2017 about a 2 minute read

Our Deputy Chief Executive, Joel Charles, was recently invited to take part in a roundtable on whether data can drive improvements in healthcare and how it can be shared more effectively. The event was hosted by the Health Service Journal and the Local Government Chronicle, in association with NHS Digital.

The context of the roundtable was set out by the Health Service Journal:

Shared information is vital if patients’ care is to be truly seamless but achieving this across both NHS organisations and their partners in local authorities and care homes has always been a challenge. Yet the move towards more integrated care which underpins many sustainability and transformation plans requires data to be available to those planning and delivering care. While the need for this has been recognised for many years, progress around the country has been variable with some areas still struggling to give staff on the ground access to shared records.

The roundtable discussed the balance between data protection and the ability to share information to deliver better outcomes for patients and how to encourage local progress to join up health and care data. Towards the end of the roundtable, the panel were asked for their views on how to support change in a difficult financial climate to improve information flows across organisations.

During the roundtable, Joel set out some of the key points from the launch of our latest report about unleashing the potential of health and care data. He mentioned the importance of enabling responsible data sharing and building public trust through tackling data-driven exploitation and sanctions to prevent the re-identification of data subjects.

Joel also mentioned five care record organisations across England involved in the delivery of Integrated Digital Records (IDCRs) that were case studies in our data report. He highlighted that one of the key points that came out of the case studies was the need the enable co-production of a joint care plan between health and social care services to deliver better outcomes for individuals locally.

One of the key points Joel emphasised was a need for new trust vehicles to unleash the potential of data. He said that a Health and Care Data Donor Bank could be a trusted intermediary for individuals consenting to donate their health and care data for the purposes of research and innovation, which would positively impact outcomes and support professionals to transform important services.

“I was delighted to join leaders from across health and care to debate how data can drive improvements. It was a great discussion and interesting to learn the different perspectives and ideas for improving information flows across health and care provision. There are a number of health and care bodies looking at new and innovative ways to join-up systems and use data to transform patient outcomes across the country. “By building trust in new ways of working we can unlock the potential of using data. Our data report recommends tackling data-driven exploitation and using new trusted vehicles to handle patient information. I believe a new National Health and Care Data Donor Bank is needed to coordinate data from the public and help improve the alignment of research to clinical need to deliver better outcomes.” Joel Charles, Deputy Chief Executive of FCC