Data Sharing in a Pandemic: Citizens' Juries

More transparency key to better public support for health data sharing, say citizens’ juries.

The Government was right to use emergency powers to share patient data during the Covid-19 pandemic but greater transparency is needed, according to three citizens’ juries.

The juries each spent 36 hours across eight days listening to evidence and deliberating on three national data sharing initiatives which were introduced to tackle the pandemic. A report on the juries’ findings is published today by researchers from The University of Manchester and ourselves at the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester, who led the project. A clear majority of jurors supported the three initiatives, with between 87% and 100% being at least ‘broadly supportive’.