MHP Communications boss highlights importance of data sharing for NHS

MHP Communications' Rachel Rowson has highlighted the key role comms agencies can play in addressing the public's concerns over NHS data sharing.

The agency's managing director and head of health has called on comms professionals, via PRWeek, to take a more active role in persuading the public that sharing their personal data will help to improve NHS services.

Many of the new frontiers in medical innovation – including personalised medicine, wearable technologies and remote monitoring – depend on being able to draw on a robust bank of easily sharable patient data that is categorised in an integrated manner.

Ms Rowson said the NHS has the potential to function as "the biggest clinical trial in the world", but it is not realising the potential due to the fact that different data sets are not linked, as well as because patients are reluctant to give permission for their information to be used.

As such, it may fall on comms professionals to make the case for data sharing, address concerns over privacy and communicate the complex issues involved in this debate in a way that is meaningful to the general public.

Ms Rowson concluded: "Communicators have a critical role in helping the health service take a great leap forward, achieving something that could be truly transformational."