The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is to introduce new legislation to require all adult social care providers to provide information about all the services they fund.
The measure is part of the government’s ‘Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data’ draft strategy published by NHSX.
DHSC said requiring social care providers to share data will ensure service users have the best care and experience.
“This could transform the care of the most vulnerable by ensuring staff have the information they need as soon as they need it, helping to provide the best possible care to the elderly,” it said.
The draft strategy proposes giving adult social care “high quality, timely and transparent data so they can make individualised choices to personalise care”.
The strategy also proposes a new duty to share anonymous data “safely and appropriately” across the entire health system so that health and care staff can access the right information when they need it.
“Data saves lives. More effective use of data will deliver better patient focused care. It will free up staff time to focus on patients and allow clinicians to make better, more informed decisions on treatment and support,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
“The pandemic has taught us we must be bold and the great strides we have made on vaccines and treatments during this time have been made possible by the way we use data,” he added.
Leading industry association Care England backed the draft strategy.
“Over the course of the pandemic, it has become increasingly apparent that reliable data from social care is a necessity to analyse the health and quality of life of the nation,” said chief executive Martin Green.
“The sector is starting to produce data at levels previously unimagined, and data is key to driving decisions which will help improve the quality of life of the people that we care for and support,” he added.
