NHS data is a goldmine. It must be saved from big tech | James Meadway
0Reported today on The Guardian Technology
For the full article visit: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/09/nhs-data-goldmine-value-private-companies
NHS data is a goldmine. It must be saved from big tech
James Meadway
Health datasets play a vital role in medical research. If the US has its way, the UK could lose a valuable public resource
As a society, we are finally acquiring a healthy scepticism about the use and abuse of our personal information. New polling conducted by YouGov for the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that 80% of the public want to see tighter rules applied to how the likes of Facebook and Amazon use their data. Over the weekend, it was revealed that US pharmaceutical companies have already been sold data relating to millions of NHS patients and that Amazon, incredibly, has been given free access to NHS data Hidden away in the secret US-UK trade papers, leaked and revealed by Labour in November, is perhaps the biggest single threat to public data yet seen.
The potential threat to the NHS from a post-Brexit US trade deal is clear, and has become a major election talking point. But alongside the well-known dangers of accelerating privatisation and drug price hikes, there are risks to one of the UK's most prized publicly owned resources. The NHS has one of the planet's most valuable repositories of data: primary care records that cover sometimes decades of consistent, high-quality, trusted data on 55 million individuals, potentially covering their entire health histories. On top of that, an estimated 23 million care records document episodic treatments when patients receive secondary or specialist care. Accountants Ernst & Young estimate its value at £9.6bn annually.
For pharmaceutical companies, such comprehensive data is considerably more valuable than any sample. Large, clean, consistent and trusted datasets such as the NHS's are a goldmine.