NHS must help patients benefit from technology
A new report from the Academy of Medical Sciences states that a radical culture change in the UK NHS and across the health data and medical technology community is needed to ensure that the NHS can deliver the benefits of new health technologies that use patient data for care, and to retain public trust.
The report outlines principles that must be adopted by the NHS and industry so that patients can benefit from digital information about them being used in smarter, more joined-up ways to revolutionise healthcare and support life-saving research. The hope is that putting these principles into action will help provide safeguards to support patient data being used in ways that are fair and will enable all NHS patients to benefit from the use of health technologies using patient data.
“Health technologies that use patient data have huge potential to improve our health and wellbeing. We are already seeing the development of wearable monitors linked to automated treatment that are revolutionising the lives of patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes,” said Professor Carol Dezateux FMedSci, Chair of report steering group and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Data Science, Queen Mary University of London. “Our workshops with the public emphasised that they want to see the NHS deliver on the potential of data-driven technologies, giving better and safer health care for all.”
The development of the principles was overseen by a steering group of 12 experts, including leading clinical, biomedical and social scientists, legal, ethical and technology specialists. The group based its discussions on a programme of dialogue commissioned from Ipsos MORI that explored public, patient and healthcare professionals' views on the future use of technologies that use patient data. Workshops were held in Cardiff, Sheffield and London involving around 100 people from a wide range of backgrounds and healthcare professionals including GPs, nurses, paramedics and hospital consultants.
Professor Sir Robert Lechler PMedSci, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said: “This report is based on high-quality, in depth conversations with members of the public, hospital doctors, GPs and nurses. We are calling for the NHS, regulators, industry and other key stakeholders to work together to adopt the principles set out in this report to make sure that patient data is used in a fair, transparent, safe and effective way. This report also highlights the opportunity for the NHS to evolve into a world-leading learning health system, where every piece of patient information is collected and learnt from using smart technologies, to improve the health of the population.”