PHG Foundation -
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the government in England introduced measures to enable the use of confidential patient information for Covid-19 purposes without consent or another form of approval that would normally be required. These measures, the ‘COPI notices’, set aside the common law duty of confidentiality for a range of purposes, including research into the disease and its impact on health and care. This report considers how these regulatory changes to the governance of confidential patient information have impacted genomic and medical research, and whether these changes should be integrated into the regulatory framework longer-term.