§ Mr. McAllionTo ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will allow full access to the decompression control register to former tunnellers pursuing compensation claims relating to the medical condition known as bone necrosis.
Mr. Robert G. HughesI have been asked to reply. The records in the former Decompression Sickness Central Registry—referred to in the Question as the Decompression Control Register—were collected over a period of 30 years until the registry ceased operation in 1984. They were recorded only for the purpose of health research.
The contractors who initiated the records and whose property they are, have always been able to request information from the stored records of decompression, manlock registers etc. Access by others to the records, for example an individual or his solicitor seeking to establish dates and decompression times relating to his own exposure to compressed air, will be granted only with the full knowledge and written permission of the contractor who initiated the records.