§ Mrs. CaltonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he will take to ensure that information collected about patients as part of the charging policy on insurance payments within foundation hospitals(a) will not be passed to other agencies and (b) will meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. [121646]
§ Mr. HuttonThe requirement to provide information necessary to administer the proposed scheme for recovery of national health service charges, set out in Part 3 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill, would apply to NHS foundation trusts in the same way as any other NHS 1007W hospital. The provisions in the Bill for the collection of patient information for the scheme comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. They do not allow patient information to be passed to other agencies but do allow the compensation recovery unit, which administers the existing state benefits recovery scheme and is expected to administer the NHS costs recovery scheme, to share information between the two schemes where it is appropriate to do so.
§ Dr. FrancisTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what discussions he has had with the Co-operative Party and other bodies in the wider Co-operative movement on foundation hospitals. [110404]
§ Mr. HuttonMy right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), has met the hon. Members who are involved in the Co-operative movement. A number of leading experts in the co-operative movement are members of the External Reference Group on Governance, which is providing applicants for national health service foundation trust status expert advice on governance issues.