Due to go live in the spring of 2025, the South West Secure Data Environment will provide an innovative and efficient approach to conducting research with millions of people’s health and care records, while maximising privacy and security.
The goal is to enable research that’s faster, fairer and safer.
NHS England has developed its own national Secure Data Environment and is supporting regions to set up their own local platforms.
What are Secure Data Environments?
Secure Data Environments (SDEs) are online platforms for accessing and analysing routinely collected health and social care data for research.
SDEs give trusted researchers secure access to NHS and local authority data. Access is only allowed with the permission of a data access committee, which represents the organisations providing data.
Data in SDEs can include information on:
- Illnesses and conditions
- Treatment and care
- Medical imaging such as X-rays
- Test results
- Medicines and allergies
- Appointments and hospital admissions
- Care and support outside hospital, including social care.
Data held in SDEs is depersonalised. This means any personally identifiable information, such as names, addresses and NHS numbers, is removed before researchers access it.
The benefits of the SDE approach
- Security and peace of mind: SDEs are developed to the highest security standards. Only approved researchers, working on pre-approved projects, will be able to access the data.
- Speeding up the research process: the SDE will make data-sharing processes more efficient. Researchers will be able to access data in one place. They won’t have to ask lots of organisations for permission or set up separate data sharing agreements. This will speed up research, bringing new treatments and approaches into practice more quickly.
- Tackling health and care inequalities: SDEs pool and link routinely collected data from GPs and other health and care services. This means that information for most of the population will be included. This in turn means that researchers can study needs and outcomes for groups of people traditionally excluded from research.
- Enabling more researchers to help solve problems in health and social care: Through improving support, processes and technology, more research can be undertaken. Examples include understanding demand for emergency or social care, or it might be on the effectiveness of treatments or developing new clinical risk scores.
This approach has already been tested within individual organisations for several years. NHS SDEs will take the approach to a larger, regional scale and widen the breadth of data that can be used for research purposes.
Eventually, regional NHS SDEs will link together as part of a national network. This will allow research across regional boundaries or the whole country. Each local data controller will still have control of where data is used.
The South West Secure Data Environment
The South West SDE covers:
- Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
- Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
- Devon
- Gloucestershire
- Somerset
- Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire
- The South Western Ambulance Service area, which also includes Dorset.
Hosted by Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Integrated Care Board, many partners from across the region are involved in developing the South West SDE, including:
- NHS organisations: hospital trusts, mental health trusts and primary care (represented by Integrated Care Boards)
- Local authorities
- Universities
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) groups like the Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs) and Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs)
- Health Innovation South West and Health Innovation West of England
- NHS England – South West
- Neighbouring SDE projects in the South of England.
The South West SDE team are also working closely with members of the public. Digital Critical Friends are members of the public who are trained in digital and data approaches in healthcare. This gives them the confidence and expertise to give their perspectives on SDE plans.
Three Digital Critical Friends sit on the South West SDE management and leadership board. They help ensure it is fit for purpose and works for the public interest.
