‘Transformative’ £600m service welcomed for health data research

Researchers in the south say a new national research service is an important step to “unlock the power of NHS data”.

The Prime Minister has announced that the Government and the Wellcome Trust will invest up to £600 million in the new service.

The Health Data Research Service (HDRS) is designed to deliver significant health benefits to the UK public and patients.

The HDRS builds on the work of the NHS Research Secure Data Environment (SDE) Network. This includes the Wessex SDE, which is led by University Hospital Southampton.

A ‘single front door’

Currently health data is held in a lot of different places, managed through different access processes.

The HDRS will streamline and simplify those processes through a ‘single front door’ system. From here, researchers will make standardised requests to access data.

This will make the system simpler and more efficient. It will accelerate the speed at which new treatments and services start to benefit patients.

Nationwide impact

The SDE Network is already helping to converge more than 7,000 existing access points.

Professor Chris Kipps is the Wessex SDE Lead at University Hospital Southampton.

He said: “This announcement represents a transformative advancement for UK health research infrastructure.

“We are proud to contribute to the development of the HDRS, accelerating vital health discoveries and delivering more effective patient care nationwide.”

Patients and privacy

The Wessex SDE will continue to lead regional work to accelerate access to NHS patient data for research. It is putting safety and privacy first. The SDE is also committed to putting patients and the public at the heart of its work, ensuring trust is central to its development.

Insights from the Wessex SDE’s engagement with over 670 people from the region and NHS England’s recent nationwide engagement, involving over 4,000 individuals, are driving the design of our Wessex SDE and the HDRS.