Baroness Helene Hayman, recently took over the role of Chair of the UK Biobank Ethics & Governance Council. Her predecessor, Professor Roger Brownsword, stepped down in December 2015, after his four-year appointment came to an end. Baroness Hayman addressed the UK Biobank Annual Meeting. “The EGC was set up as an independent group of people who could come together from a variety of different backgrounds so that we could act as an independent sounding board on (some of these) issues of governance. We are there to provide that extra level of assurance to participants and the public and to look at some of these in principle questions, just one step removed. We maintain the correct balance of challenging and asking difficult questions of UK Biobank while being fundamentally committed to the success of the project,” she said. The EGC ensures UK Biobank’s compliance with its Ethics & Governance Framework (EGF), a document that sets out how it should behave.

You can find out more about the UK Biobank Ethics & Governance Council, here: http://egcukbiobank.org.uk/