National Data Guardian statement on NHS Federated Data Platform data access, in response to the Not With My NHS Data campaign

Response to concerns from the Not With My NHS Data campaign about access to patient data by external contractors in the NHS Federated Data Platform National Data Integration Tenant.

We agreed to update this statement once NHS England had responded to the National Data Guardian's request for information and clarification. NHS England has now provided that information, and the statement has been updated to reflect and respond to it. We also removed a section discussing the National Data Opt-out and its relationship to the NHS Federated Data Platform more broadly. Having reviewed the statement, we concluded that this discussion was outside the scope of the specific issue being addressed, namely contractor access to the National Data Integration Tenant and may have caused confusion.

Dr Nicola Byrne, National Data Guardian for health and social care

Many members of the public have contacted the Office of the National Data Guardian (NDG) through the Not With My NHS Data campaign to raise their concerns about external contractors having access to identifiable patient information in the NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP) and its associated National Data Integration Tenant (NDIT).

Public trust is essential to the use of health and care data, and it is right that people ask questions about how their information is used. Whilst we welcome this engagement, we are not able to engage with each enquiry individually due to the volume of correspondence received. We hope, however, that this statement provides a clear response to the main concerns we understand people are raising.