Protecting Health and Care Information Our joint submission to the government's consultation

The joint response to the consultation from the Health Foundation, King's Fund and Nuffield Trust focuses on the following points:

• Appropriate strategies for accreditation are the key to managing the risk and benefits.
• A clear and consistent framework for use of all de-identified person-level data, which protects confidentiality, facilitates new research, and can be built upon by other sectors is essential.
• Active and proportionate monitoring, not high volumes of regulations, are the key to a secure and effective system.
• Enabling novel research through de-identified data linked at the patient level has massive potential to improve health for all and reduce health inequalities.

The response argues that we must use this opportunity to build a robust, transparent system of data exchange that both protects confidentiality of individuals and makes use of the huge potential that de-identified person-level data have to improve health and care for all.