NHS Will No Longer Have to Share Immigrants’ Data with Home Office

Ministers have suspended controversial arrangements under which the NHS shared patients’ details with the Home Office so it could trace people breaking immigration rules. The government’s U-turn on a key element of its “hostile environment” approach to immigration came after MPs, doctors’ groups and health charities warned that the practice was scaring some patients from seeking NHS care for medical problems.

Margot James, a minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, announced the rethink during a parliamentary debate on the data protection bill. She confirmed that the government had decided to suspend “with immediate effect” the memorandum of understanding (MOU) under which NHS Digital, the health service’s statistical arm, shared 3,000 NHS patients’ details with the Home Office last year so they could check those people’s immigration status. Patients had given their details when attending GP and hospital appointments.

In future, Home Office immigration staff would only be able to use the data-sharing mechanism to trace people who are being considered for deportation from Britain because they have committed a serious crime, James made clear to MPs.

Read more: Denis Campbell, Guardian, https://is.gd/1qO8Ri