Policy Objective
3.Providing a clear statutory framework, and robust and stringent safeguards, which will enable the use of health and social care information which identifies individuals to be used for health care or social care purposes which are in the public interest, without the consent of the individuals whose information may be used.
4.The provisions of the Act will only be utilised where it is impossible or impracticable to gain the consent of individuals, anonymised or pseudonymised information would not achieve the desired outcome and the committee established under the provisions authorises the processing.
5.The policy objective underlying this Act is to minimise the legal challenge risk which the Department and the Health and Social Care sector could potentially face as a consequence of using service user information, which identifies individuals, for purposes other than the direct care of the individual.