NHS and social care services may also share data from people’s records to:
- plan and improve services
- prevent illness and diseases
- develop new medicines, vaccines, treatments or medical tools
- find new ways of preventing people becoming ill
- help understand the needs of the population to get the best out of resources and plan for the future
- understand the needs of people living in a particular area to help provide the right healthcare services
This data may also be shared with approved organisations who are carrying out research or developing new cures and treatments.
The data is in a coded format and does not normally contain information that you can be identified from (such as your name, date of birth of postcode). This is called anonymised data. Strict rules and process are in place to keep your data confidential and secure.
You have the right to object to data from your records being shared.
You can see how data is used to improve people’s health and care in these two animations:
How sharing your data helps keep people well
How sharing your data improves care for everyone