Health Information Bill introduced in Parliament

27 November 2025

The Health Information Bill was read for the first time in Parliament on 5 November 2025 (“Bill”). The Bill seeks to establish a framework for the safe collection, sharing, and use of patient health data through the National Electronic Health Record (“NEHR”). It mandates healthcare providers to contribute key medical information, introduces safeguards for privacy and cybersecurity, and supports better care coordination, efficiency, and innovation.

The Ministry of Health conducted a public consultation on the Bill from 11 December 2023 to 11 January 2024. Please see our article “MOH consults on proposed Health Information Bill: Establishes framework to govern safe collection, access, use, and sharing of health information”. 

This article highlights some of the key provisions of the Bill.

Framework for NEHR

The Bill seeks to establish a statutory framework for Singapore’s national electronic records system, which underpins the NEHR. The NEHR is an electronic system holding individuals’ health information that consolidates key health data from across multiple healthcare providers into a single record. Low participation in the NEHR by healthcare providers has resulted in the fragmentation of patient records, hindering continuity of patient care and disrupting the effectiveness of national health initiatives. The Bill aims to improve the usefulness of the NEHR by mandating the collection, use, and disclosure of certain health information to the NEHR. Certain classes of healthcare providers and other entities listed in the First Schedule to the Bill would be required to contribute prescribed types of health information, including core clinical data such as diagnoses, medications, allergies, and investigation results. Access to this information will be limited to specified users and approved users, such as healthcare licensees and approved community partners, for clearly defined care-related purposes.

Sharing of health information

The Bill provides for the sharing of health and related information held outside the NEHR through data sharing arrangements approved by the Ministry of Health, but only for specific use cases, including outreach under national health initiatives, supporting continuity and coordination of care (including telecollaboration), and determining eligibility for health-related financing schemes.

The Bill also introduces robust purpose limitations to prevent misuse, expressly prohibiting accessing or using NEHR information for employment-related assessments or insurance-related decisions, and providing for enhanced penalties for breach of such excluded purposes.

Individuals may request access restrictions over their information in the system, limiting which users may access their data and for what purposes, although the restrictions may be overridden in defined situations such as medical emergencies or where required under other written law.

Cybersecurity and data protection

All contributors, users, and relevant health data intermediaries must comply with unified cybersecurity, data security, and breach notification obligations, including safeguards for electronic and non-electronic information, proper retention and disposal practices, and incident-management and reporting duties. 

Reference materials

The Bill is available on Singapore Statutes Online sso.agc.gov.sg.