The long-awaited Health Information Bill, which provides for the creation of summary care records, will be published within the coming days, Pulse+IT has learned.

The Department of Health has confirmed that Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly brought the legislation to a meeting of Cabinet on Tuesday, July 9.

A number of procedural steps are now being taken to arrange for the presentation of the Bill to Dáil Éireann and publication is expected in the coming days.

The second stage debate will be scheduled for the next Dáil session, to be followed by the committee stage and progression of the Bill through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The purpose of the legislation is to provide a robust legislative framework for the processing of health information to support a modern integrated health service.

If passed, it will provide a legislative framework for the collection, use and sharing of health information, both for care and treatment and wider health service goals, such as clinical research and public health management.

The proposed Bill provides for the creation of a summary care record (SCR) and introduces a “duty to share” on healthcare providers to share relevant patient-level health information, with the objective of ensuring that the information follows the patient through the entire care pathway.

The Bill also introduces a public interest-led framework whereby that information can be made available to legitimate third parties, for example for use in clinical research.

The legislation is critical to the roll-out of the national digital health strategy. The SCRs defined in the Bill will be the building blocks for shared care records and the national electronic health record (EHR) system.