New NHS data to be made available for research

The government has announced plans to make important NHS data available to the medical research sector.

According to plans outlined in the autumn growth review, innovative data services are set to make detailed, anonymised information available from the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care.

This will allow health service and pharmaceutical industry staff, as well as academics and other professionals, to view linked datasets from GP and hospital care to gain understanding of disease development and the outcome of different therapies.

It will take advantage of the UK's position as one of the few nations to offer universal health support throughout the population's lives and is intended to fuel new treatment advances.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Patients will benefit directly from our efforts to make health data transparent and easy to use by the medical research community."

Last week, the government published figures showing that the NHS is performing well in areas such as mental health care and vaccinations, but lagging behind other nations in terms of cancer and respiratory disease care.