Data protection has been a ‘hot topic’ for Boris Johnson’s government, both throughout Brexit negotiations and with a view to the future now the transition period is over. It is an area in which the government wants to flex the UK’s post Brexit freedom. The EU adopted a position of adequacy in relation to the UK’s data protection regime, allowing the personal data of EU citizens to flow unimpeded into the UK. This was on the proviso that our data protection legislation offered a similar level of protection to the GDPR. Our current data protection regime essentially mirrors the GDPR (now called the UK GDPR) and supplemented by The Data Protection Act 2018.

China’s new personal information privacy law (PIPL) becomes effective on 1 November 2021. It significantly alters the regional and global privacy landscape, and its significance will likely be more apparent after having read this article.

This month, we take a look at the government’s recently launched consultation on data protection reform and examine key points within it in relation to the life sciences, health and care sectors.

Earlier this year, the Health and Social Care Committee released its report on The Safety of Maternity Services in England. The report outlined recommendations in respect of funding, learning and clinical negligence claims arising out of maternity care. The committee’s report focused on improving safety of maternity services and the ongoing National Maternity Safety Ambition to halve the number of stillbirths, neonatal deaths, brain injuries and investigations by 2025. The government’s progress against the four key commitments for maternity services was reviewed and given an overall verdict of ‘requires improvement’ by the committee. 

Earlier this summer the UK government launched a new and wide-ranging Life Sciences Vision with the aim of unlocking innovation and tackling some of the biggest healthcare challenges of our generation

Our team advises UK and international companies, management teams and entrepreneurs on the entire range of UK and cross-border acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and complex reorganisations and restructurings.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented the biggest challenge in the history of the NHS. It has driven an unprecedented level of demand and required an equally unparalleled response. The NHS tackled (and achieved) many things in its COVID-19 response that, prior to 2020, many would have said were impossible. However, it is widely accepted that some areas of the COVID-19 response (including, of course, areas outside the NHS) were not as they should be. It was therefore only a matter of time before the government agreed to some form of public scrutiny of the pandemic response as a whole. The prime minister has announced that an independent public inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic will be established, which he says will enable the “state [to discharge its] obligation to examine its actions as rigorously and candidly as possible and to learn every lesson for the future”. A tall order.

The Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act 2018 received Royal Assent on 1 November 2018. Regulations are awaited which will determine when the legislation comes into force.

The Health and Social Care Committee’s report on the safety of maternity services in England makes recommendations in respect of funding, learning and clinical negligence claims arising out of maternity care. 

The Loan Markets Association, which is the recognised trade body for the syndicated loan market in EMEA recently published its ‘Social Loan Principles’ (SLP). Similar to its ‘Green Loan Principles’ (GLP), the SLP were put together with the aim of creating a high-level framework of market standards and guidelines, while providing a consistent methodology for use across the social loan market, allowing the loan product to retain its flexibility and to preserve the integrity of the social loan market while it develops.

Following the deal with the NHS last year, independent sector providers have played a significant role in the UK public health system response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the improving picture there is inevitably a considerable NHS elective backlog that the government has signalled independent sector providers will support via arrangements such as the Increasing Capacity Framework, for some time yet to come.

Hill Dickinson’s Health team has been named as a finalist in the HealthInvestor Awards 2021, the most prestigious and well-attended awards ceremony in the UK health and social care sector.