Details of more than 8,000 patients requested in the first eleven months of 2016 in order to locate potential offenders
The Guardian reported on Tuesday that the confidential patient records of more than 8,000 people have been handed over to the Home Office by the National Health Service (NHS) as part of a drive to track down immigration offenders.
Image credit: UK GovernmentAccording to the Guardian, Department of Health figures show that the Home Office made 8,127 requests for patient details in the first eleven months of 2016, which led to 5,854 people being traced by immigration enforcement.
The Independent reported that details of an information sharing agreement between the health service and the Home Office shows that non-clinical details that can be sought from NHS Digital include names, dates of birth and the individual's last known address.
The Guardian quoted a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Department of Health and the Home Office as stating: "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."
The requests are said to involve potential offenders whom the immigration authorities have lost contact with and have failed to comply with reporting restrictions, absconded or escaped from immigration detention or have overstayed their visa.
The full memorandum of understanding between the Health and Social Care Information Centre and the Home Office and the Department of Health has been published here on GOV.UK.
A government spokesperson told the Guardian: "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."
According to the Independent, Labour's shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said the practice was "unacceptable".
"We have already seen this Government using schools to gather immigration data on children. Now we find they are using the NHS in the same way," Abbott was quoted as saying.