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NHS: Databases

Asked by Martin WrigleyLiberal DemocratDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled Answered 14 July 2025UIN 65988

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS England is taking to verify that derivative analytical outputs from the NHS Federated Digital Platform cannot be reverse‑engineered to reveal identifiable patient data.

Answered by Karin Smyth

All analytics products created by NHS England, including those developed on the NHS Federated Data Platform, are subject to a full Data Privacy Impact Assessment (DPIA) as part of the design and development process, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/overarching-data-protection-impact-assessment-dpia-for-the-federated-data-platform-fdp/#18-in-which-country-territory-will-personal-data-be-stored-or-processed

All data used by the NHS Federated Data Platform integrates with advanced Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET). This has been procured from a separate supplier to ensure independence and to mitigate any potential conflicts of interest. This technology ensures that data is processed in a secure and privacy-preserving manner.

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