The fundamental issue at stake here is respect for the citizen.

The last month of debate about care.data feels like the previous ten years of discussion about the sharing of personal data bottled as a concentrate solution of ill-temper or should that be distemper?

Many will say that NHS England – who yesterday announced a six-month pause in the scheme – have taken the biggest hit. But no one emerges with great credit from this affair. For citizens are non the wiser one way or the other. They have been ill-served by policy-makers on both sides of the debate, as they have been on this issue for as long as I can remember.

I should say that I support care.data.

I think that it will be a secure system but that there are always risks. And no guarantees. I buy into the notion that it is important to future medical research. But I think the claims around this are often exaggerated and don’t do their proponents any favours. I think a form of ‘opt-out’ is the most practical option and in keeping with the values that most of us hope underpin the NHS. Yet I also think that we should have the right to change our minds if and when our life circumstances change.

I think the professions have played fast and loose on the issue for too long. After all, a lot of their power within the system is locked into the current status of yours and my medical records and data.
When we developed the ‘Your health records saves lives’ leaflet many moons ago, citizens were more willing to share their data than GPs who tended to take up a highly paternalistic stance. However, more than a few were less and less paternalistic about their patients when it came to the prospect of working with pharmaceutical companies and being rewarded for it.

Anyway, that’s an aside or should I say unwarranted broadside. But I am afraid that care.data and the years of debate about data preceding has often been a case of policy-makers being, at best, neurotic and, at worst, mistrustful of their fellow citizens.

Fact is that I have been able to form an opinion because I have had an opportunity to listen to, and interrogate, the arguments at close quarters. And that is what was so wrong about the care.data leaflet campaign. In tone and style and delivery it was dismissive of the citizen and their right to question and form an opinion. Would it have been different if NHS Citizen had been in place I ask? Could it not be the perfect issue on which to test and perfect this initiative? Or is that too much to expect?

As an example of how ‘national’ and ‘local’ can work together in the new NHS to roll-out national initiatives, care.data has been a disaster. Whatever happens over the next six months, the initiative must be co-produced with citizens at source, and its delivery collaborative effort by NHS England working with Healthwatch, patient groups, GP Participation Groups and many other partners. If care.data means that much to our nation in terms of health and wealth, we should spend the time and money in investing in our citizens to understand why.

And, lastly, if researchers and doctors and managers want a lifetime of yours and my data to work on then they need to do more to develop a relationship with citizens about its importance and how we can be better custodians of it. A few weeks ago a head of an NIHR Biomedical Research Centre was telling me how their NHS Trust is now including short statements in letters to patients to help grow understanding about how data is used. It is a small example of the level of visibility we need for this important aspect of delivering care in the future.

Fact is, if we want a 21st Century NHS, we need a 21st Century attitude to involving citizens in decision-making.