Explore our datasets
The Eastern England Secure Data Environment (SDE) enables secure access to high-quality, OMOP-standardised health and research datasets from NHS organisations and research partners across the largest region in England, including 10-years of secondary care data from Cambridge University Hospitals.
All data accessed through the SDE remains securely protected, is used only for approved purposes, and never leaves the trusted environment.
Approved users can access a range of secondary care data assets, including:
- Bespoke curated datasets
- Re-purposed research data
- Datasets structured using the OMOP common data model across participating sites
- Mapped and unmapped data to support different analytical needs
- Prescribing and pathology data from partnering NHS trusts.
Collaborative workspaces enable secure partnership working between NHS teams and external research collaborators.
Our datasets
Within the environment, approved researchers can:
- Discover and access NHS patient data from data partners in the region
- Securely link data from different sources without that data ever leaving the NHS
- Improve the quality of and standardise data that you currently manage into common formats
- Collaborate with analysis tools in a secure environment.
Current data
Data available through the Eastern England SDE includes data on patients who hold an electronic patient record (EPR) at participating NHS organisations in the region and who have not opted out of their data being used for research. Initially, the SDE provides access to structured clinical data collected during routine care, subject to approval from the data access committee approval for each project.
Only de-identified data approved for a specific research project is made available within the platform. The types of data that may be accessed from secondary care providers include:
- Demographic information (such as age and ethnicity)
- Diagnoses
- Procedures and investigations
- Diagnostic (tabular laboratory) results
- Medication history and dosage
Our cohort discovery tooling can be used to identify the number of records that meeting potential research study or clinical trial cohort inclusion criteria. This information (cohort query and records count) can be used to support the data access application.
Specific data subsets are securely pulled from provider organisations on a per-approved-project basis. Once a project is complete, the data is removed from the research environment. The Eastern England SDE is not a data lake. It is a controlled, project-based environment where access is temporary, auditable, and proportionate.
Our data resource operates across a regional population of just under 12 million people, characterised by:
Diverse socio-economic variation, enabling research across different communities and health needs
Socially stable communities generating large-scale longitudinal health data, ideal for long-term outcomes, population health, and real-world evidence research.
Future data roadmap
The Eastern England SDE is continually evolving to expand the depth and breadth of available datasets. Over time, the data resource will grow to include:
- Primary care data to enable end-to-end patient pathway insights
- Multi-modal data, including imaging and genomics data
To explore the full catalogue of datasets and supporting documentation from our regional partners, visit the Health Data Research Gateway, where you can browse available datasets.
Enquire about access
If you are a researcher with a project that requires use of the SDE, we’re here to help.