The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has published a new commentary from PHG Foundation’s Colin Mitchell and Alison Hall. Lessons from the pandemic for the future regulation of confidential patient information for research is available at SAGE journals. The commentary highlights that, overall, regulatory changes that facilitated research access to confidential patient information for COVID-19 purposes (the ‘COPI notices’) have had a positive impact on research but that there are lessons – including the continuing importance of transparency and public engagement – for future regulatory reforms.
Work by the PHG Foundation resulted in the detailed report Regulation and use of confidential patient information for genomic and medical research during and post COVID-19 , on which the commentary is based. The work was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care Policy Research Programme.