Patients should be given “full and unfettered” access to their medical records, Norfolk MP George Freeman will tell parliament today as he calls for a change in the law so patients own their own medical data.In a Ten Minute Rule Bill the Mid Norfolk MP will call for patients to be able to hand their medical data over to researchers to help drive new treatments for hard-to-cure diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer.

His bill is supported by more than 50 UK medical charities including the prostate cancer campaign group Movember, Marie Curie, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and a number of leading research doctors.

George Freeman MP said that patient records were too often sitting on hospital shelves gathering dust – allowing failed treatments to be repeated over and over without anyone gathering the evidence to see what works and what fails – and why.