Clause 48 - Special protection for personal records
Health Bill
6:15 pm
Andrew Lansley (Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Health; South Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
To be sure about things, may I inquire about two points. The first relates to the inclusion of the words a ''member of the public''. Surely the point is not so much that information should not be disclosed to any member of the public but, from an individual's point of view, that it should not be disclosed to any person for whom it is not essential to the court proceedings. I am unsure what a ''member of the public'' means in this context. Does it mean anyone who is not related to the court proceedings in any way, including NHS staff for example?
I may have missed the answer to my second point, but this seems to be the appropriate point at which to ask the question. Where information from somebody's personal records is produced in connection with such a case, where are the obligations on the counter-fraud service to ensure that it is aware of that? Will it be unaware of that or will there be some provision to ensure that it is aware that the information is being used, and aware of to whom it is being disclosed and for what purposes?