Health committee says it can find data only from the past 10 months

Stephen Dorrell, Tory chairman of the health select committee, has said he will write to the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to ask for details about which organisations have acquired medical records since 2010.

His pledge came after officials at the new arms-length body said they could retrieve data only from the last 10 months.

In tense exchanges during a meeting of the committee on Tuesday, it emerged that the health and social care information centre (HSCIC), set up to run the database of patient records, will publish all of its data requests and releases outlining which bodies have received patient information, and why.

However, Max Jones, director of information and data services at the HSCIC, said that it would not be possible to produce any information before the centre was set up in April 2013 as its predecessor "no longer existed".

This defence infuriated the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, who said that in January 2012 the hospital admissions records of 47 million people – specifying treatments and diagnoses, ages, and areas the patients lived in – from 1989 to 2010 were handed to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for setting insurance premiums.

Also that year, the Department for Work and Pensions attempted to obtain access to confidential patient data to be linked to information about employment, tax credits and benefits claims. It was rejected.

Dorrell said data releases had taken "place under the current government for which current ministers are responsible … I will write to the secretary of state [for health] and pursue it".

MPs had called witnesses to examine the vexed issue of medical records, which in recent weeks has been front-page news amid concerns over patient privacy and the possibility of commercial firms purchasing sensitive information. Last week NHS England announced it would delay by six months the rollout of its flagship care.data scheme, linking GP records and hospital data, amid criticism of how it has run the public information campaign about the project.

Appearing before MPs on Tuesday, Tim Kelsey, the NHS director in charge of the programme and a former journalist at the Sunday Times, blamed a "confused media environment".

But he said the health service had to get "three things right in the next six months".

Kelsey said he had to assure the public that safeguards would ensure patient data could be used only for the benefit of NHS care. Second, GPs had been given insufficient information and money to answer questions from patients about the scheme.

And last, patients needed to understand they could opt out. Kelsey drew gasps of derision when he claimed that care.data was vital for the NHS and that staff at his local hospital had besieged him with complaints about the scheme not being implemented quickly enough.

Many in the medical community who say care.data could damage GPs' reputations. A poll for the Medical Protection Society, which indemnifies doctors, found that 80% of family doctors believe the system could "undermine public confidence in the principle of medical confidentiality".

Dr Stephanie Bown of the society said: "Historically, patients have had confidence in their GP to look after their sensitive information. We worry that patients' concerns about care.data could prevent them from speaking openly to their doctor about significant health issues for fear of it being shared outside the practice."

Earlier in the day Labour's health spokesman, Andy Burnham, warned of a growing "public revolt" against the care.data scheme. He said Hunt may have misled the Commons as the health secretary had claimed: "we have sent a leaflet to Wevery house in the country."

However, a freedom of information response from NHS England reveals that the unaddressed leaflet was not considered "exceptional' post" – common for nationwide government communications – and therefore did not reach houses that ask Royal Mail not to deliver junk post.

Many people still report never having received a leaflet.