Transparency data

Minutes of the National Data Guardian Panel Meeting, 17 March 2026

Published 13 October 2026

Applies to England

Attendees

Panel members

• Dr Nicola Byrne (chair)
• Dr Natalie Banner
• John Carvel
• Claire Delaney-Pope
• Dr George Fernie
• Dr Jeffry Hogg
• Maisie McKenzie
• Dr Jess Morley
• Professor Daniel Ray
• Dr David Sharp
• Rob Shaw
• Jenny Westaway
• Professor James Wilson

Office of the National Data Guardian team

• Nishat Ahmed
• Dr Vicky Chico
• Mathew Fry
• Layla Heyes
• Karen Swift

Observer:

• Helen Dyer

1. Welcome, apologies, and declarations of interest

National Data Guardian (NDG), Dr Nicola Byrne, chaired the meeting.

• Apologies were received from Mr Adrian Marchbank and Dr Fiona Head.

• The panel was advised that Mat Fry, on secondment as Head of the Office of the National Data Guardian, would be leaving this role on 31 March 2026.

2. Minutes from previous meeting, actions, and decisions

Panel members accepted the minutes from its 20 January 2026 meeting.

There is one open action. All other actions were agreed as having been completed prior to this meeting.

3. Key updates

Mathew Fry led the key updates, summarising key Office of the National Data Guardian (ONDG) activities since the last panel and briefing on several areas where NDG input was being sought by NHS England (NHSE) and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), including: potential reform of data opt‑out arrangements; the Single Patient Record programme; work on legislative and regulatory proposals relevant to the merger of NHSE and DHSC; potential updates to the Control of patient information (COPI). The NDG continues to engage closely with policy teams to ensure that any future changes reflect and uphold public expectations of privacy, trust and appropriate use of health and care data.

Confidentiality Matters campaign

The panel were given an update on the future NDG campaign to support good practice in how staff access patient records. The project now has a dedicated manager and is currently in its scoping and feasibility stage, with staff exploring how practical and possible a large-scale, staff-facing campaign might be given available resources. All delivery options, including a partnership with NHS England and others, are still being explored.

4. NHS England draft local clinical audit guidance

NHS England is developing guidance that explains when confidential patient information (CPI) can be used for local clinical audit. During engagement with those who undertake clinical audit and quality improvement work, it has become clear that they do not draw a clear distinction between local clinical audit and local service evaluation in terms of the aim of both being assuring safe and high-quality care. Further, both activities are also subject to similar governance frameworks and safeguards. However, the 2013 Information Governance Review categorises local clinical audit as direct care and service evaluation as indirect care.

Panel discussed whether patients and the public would expect this distinction to exist with regard to these activities and also to other activities that have a similar aim of assuring safe and high-quality care. Members noted the importance of maintaining public trust in confidentiality while ensuring that processes which are necessary to ensure that care is safe and high-quality can take place. They also emphasised the need for clarity around the conditions under which implied consent can apply, and how concepts such as a legitimate care relationship or reasonable expectations should guide decision‑making around what data may be used.

The panel recognised the value of developing clear, principle‑based guidance to support NHS organisations in applying information governance in a consistent and proportionate way. This includes ensuring that any use of CPI for local assurance activities (such as local audit, service evaluation or safe testing of new systems before deployment) is subject to appropriate clinical oversight and safeguards.

The discussion will inform the NDG’s ongoing work on care pathways and its wider consideration of the legal bases for using CPI to support the delivery of safe, high‑quality care. The NDG will continue to work with NHS England as it develops updated guidance for local clinical audit and related activities.

5. Any other business

The panel discussed a recent increase in media coverage of campaigns calling for the removal of Palantir Technologies from NHS data infrastructure, with particular focus on the NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP).

The panel heard about Trusts receiving correspondence from members of the public opposing adoption of the NHS FDP. The panel reflected on whether this increase in media coverage might affect several areas: public trust in the privacy of NHS data; people’s willingness to seek care or share information with health and care professionals; the system-wide use of the NHS FDP, and its value realisation; and national data opt‑out rates. Members emphasised the importance of ongoing transparent and coherent communication by the NHS FDP programme about the privacy safeguards in place and the benefits it aims to deliver, including correcting any factual inaccuracies in the public domain where these may be found to exist. The NDG confirmed her understanding that this is the programme’s intention.

Whilst such communication may not resolve concerns raised in the public discourse about the values of the supplier, the panel felt such communication was important to clarify that strong protections continue to apply to the use of health data within the NHS, regardless of which supplier or suppliers provide its data systems. Further, the panel stressed it was important throughout discussions about the NHS FDP and any future plans, for instance for the Single Patient Record or other data programmes, that the NDG continued to clearly articulate the importance of maintaining confidence in a confidential health and care system.

These reflections will continue to inform the NDG’s engagement with national digital and data programmes and her advice to ministers.