The former head of NHS Digital repeatedly clashed with Theresa May’s Home Office over requests to hand over confidential patient data to help trace immigration offenders, he has revealed.

Kingsley Manning has said that the Home Office “put him under immense pressure” to share patient data despite concerns about the legal basis and fears it would undermine claims that NHS Digital was “a safe haven” for personal data.

The latest published figures show that the non-clinical personal details including last known address, GP’s details and date registered with their doctor, of more than 8,100 people in the past year have been passed to Home Office immigration enforcement.

A wide range of health and human rights organisation, including Doctors of the World, the National Aids Trust, Liberty and Privacy International last week called for a suspension of the data sharing service while a public review of its merits takes place.

A memorandum of understanding jointly published by the Home Office and NHS Digital last week which came into effect on 1 January outlined for the first time the legal basis of requests for confidential patient information to trace immigration offenders the Home Office have lost touch with.

Manning told the Health Services Journal that when he became chair of NHS Digital in 2013 he became “very concerned” to discover that personal confidential data had been passed to the Home Office since at least 2005.



“We said to the Home Office: ‘We need to understand what the legal basis of this is.’ The Home Office response was: ‘How dare you even question our right to this information. This is data that belongs to the public. It is paid for by the taxpayer. We should use it for public policy’,” said Manning.

“The Home Office view was that tracing illegal immigrants was a manifesto commitment. If I didn’t agree to cooperate [with the sharing of patient data] they would simply take the issue to Downing Street,” he said.

He said he was concerned it would undermine NHS Digital reputation as a “safe haven” for patient data and could deter highly vulnerable people from getting medical help because they were worried that their information would be shared with the Home Office.

“We were supposed to be a safe haven for patient data, and here we were giving out information on thousands of people a year to the Home Office, without any transparency or oversight,” he added.

The new memorandum of understanding (MoU) makes clear the legal powers requiring the NHS to share confidential patient information records are contained in obscure exemptions in the Health and Social Care Act. The new MoU with the Department of Health published on Tuesday justifies their use, saying it is in the public interest that UK public services, including the NHS, jobs, schools and housing, should be protected from unnecessary pressures.

“The information to be disclosed under this MoU is administrative in nature and consequently falls at the less intrusive end of the privacy spectrum, making disclosure easier to justify as the public interest threshold is lower,” it says.



A government spokesman said: “We share limited information between health agencies and the Home Office to trace immigration offenders and vulnerable people, and prevent those without the right to access benefits and services doing so at the expense of the UK taxpayer.

“Access to this information is strictly controlled, with strong legal safeguards. No clinical information is shared, and before anything at all is shared there has to be a legal basis to do so. Immigration officials only contact the NHS when other reasonable attempts to locate people have been unsuccessful,” they added.