Proportionate Access to Linked Healthcare Records

The UK government and devolved administrations should work together, with their respective health delivery services, to facilitate and coordinate regulatory bodies' access to healthcare records in order to make the post-authorisation safety monitoring of new vaccines and therapeutics more efficient. In particular, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency should be granted specific and proportionate access to comprehensive and comparable data from across the four nations of the UK, including linked primary and secondary healthcare data records. This should include data on vaccines and therapeutics administration. This improved linkage must be accompanied by strong safeguards for patient confidentiality, which the Information Commissioner's Office should work with the four governments to ensure.