NHS Digital ends agreement to share migrant patient data with Home Office
NHS Digital has confirmed that it will completely withdraw a data-sharing agreement that allowed the Home Office to request non-clinical patient data to target people for deportation.
The decision follows a legal challenge brought by the Migrants’ Rights Network, represented by human rights organisation Liberty and Matrix Chambers.
The claimant argued that the data-sharing arrangement:
- violated patients’ right to privacy under the Human Rights Act
- did not pass the public interest test required to breach the doctor-patient relationship
- left migrants too scared to access healthcare services they were entitled to
- discriminated against non-British patients
In May the government announced that the data-sharing deal, which was agreed in 2016, would be suspended.
Rita Chadha, Interim Director of Migrants’ Rights Network, said: “On the 70th Anniversary of the NHS it is absolutely vital that our great British institutions uphold the best British values. The right to privacy and the access to health care, is a right that many of us take for granted, sadly this has not been the case of health services for migrants.
“We are delighted that the Government is starting to dismantle the hostile environment by conceding that deterring people from accessing health services is cruel, inhumane and ultimately more costly.”
Lara ten Caten, Lawyer for Liberty, said: “This secret data-sharing deal undermined every principle our health service is built on, showing contempt for confidentiality and forcing people to choose between self-medicating and detention and possible deportation.
“This stand-down by the government is a huge victory for everyone who believes we should be able to access healthcare safely – and particularly for doctors and nurses who had become complicit in the Government’s hostile environment against their will. This triumph shows that if we stand up to xenophobic policies, we can and will dismantle them.”
Liberty instructed Guy Vassall-Adams QC, Sarah Hannett and Aidan Wills of Matrix Chambers who worked pro bono.
