Chi Onwurah – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason callers to NHS England’s EHIC renewal line are assumed to agree to data-sharing if they do not hang up, whilst other government departments require legal data-sharing gateways.

Jane Ellison

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) administers the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) application system and telephone line.

Applicants for EHIC cards are asked to agree to share their application details for the purpose of validating EHIC applications and claims (for which information is shared with the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and in order to prevent and detect fraud and errors (for which information may be shared with NHS Protect and the Department of Health – International Division). The agreement of customers to share their data is sufficient under the Data Protection Act. No personal medical or clinical data is shared as part of this process.

Callers to the EHIC telephone service are assumed to agree to share their application details. We acknowledge that the current telephone message advising callers about data sharing could be clearer. The NHS BSA has undertaken that they will not share any further EHIC data which is gathered through the telephone service, until the message has been updated.