The Eastern England Secure Data Environment (SDE) is leading six Health Data Research Service (HDRS) Technical Transformation Projects and will contribute to a further four, to deliver more connected health data for research.
Backed by the UK Government and Wellcome, the Health Data Research Service (HDRS) has been set up to make it easier for approved researchers to securely access health data and develop new insights, treatments and healthcare improvements. HDRS is investing in 43 projects, led by NHS Secure Data Environments and secure data environments across the devolved nations, to provide the foundations for making data available at scale for research and innovation.
The Eastern England SDE is part of the NHS Research Secure Data Environments National Network, and a leading contributor to the UK’s health data research infrastructure, enabling approved researchers to securely access and analyse health data for research that improves patient care and health outcomes, while ensuring that patient privacy is protected. Working in partnership with NHS organisations, universities and industry partners across the East of England and East Midlands, it forms part of the national network of secure data environments.
Through these projects, the Eastern England SDE will help shape new approaches to solving some of the biggest challenges in health data research, helping researchers and the NHS realise the potential of patient data for research that improves treatment, services and outcomes for patients.
Dr Laura Venn, Head of Health Informatics Programme Delivery, at the Eastern England SDE said:
“We are delighted to be involved in the projects funded through this programme. The awards recognise the expertise that has been developed across the Eastern England SDE in delivering the infrastructure, governance and technical solutions needed for secure health data research at scale. The knowledge, tools and approaches developed through these projects will benefit researchers across the UK and help unlock new opportunities to improve health and care for patients.”
Leading six national projects
Eastern England SDE will lead the delivery of six funded projects:
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): Building on a model funded by NHS England last year – this provides a route for other Secure Data Environments and research organisations to use the Eastern England SDE’s secure platform as if it were their own, with their own data, and under their own governance arrangements – reducing the need to build and maintain separate technical infrastructure.
- Airlock Decision Hub: Developing a reusable workflow and audit system for reviewing and releasing research outputs from secure environments, ensuring compliance with disclosure control requirements and protecting patient confidentiality.
- Federated and Harmonised Pharma-Backed Multi-SDE Linkage: Establishing a scalable model for connecting Secure Data Environments through shared standards and tools, enabling future large-scale research studies to access comparable data from across multiple regions without recreating data pipelines for each project. With industry sponsorship, the project will focus on an initial chronic kidney disease use case.
- NHS-Accessible Secure Compute on National AI Research Resource Infrastructure: Developing a trusted model that enables NHS organisations and Secure Data Environments to access national AI supercomputing infrastructure for approved projects, supported by consistent governance, security and operational processes.
- National Rare Cancer Tissue Discovery: Creating a secure national catalogue and matching service to enable researchers to identify whether suitable tissue samples exist across multiple tissue banks, improving study feasibility assessment while allowing individual tissue banks to retain control of their samples and access decisions.
- Waveform Integrated Research Environment (WAVE): Developing a secure research pathway that makes detailed physiological monitoring data, such as heart rhythm, brain activity and blood pressure signals, available for research. Raw data from these measurements are not routinely retained, WIRE will establish a standardised pathway for collection, governance, curation, storage and linkage to associated health records for analysis in the Eastern England SDE.
Eastern England SDE will also contribute expertise and technical capability to four further initiatives led by other regional SDEs.
Building the foundations for faster, more secure and better connected health research
The UK holds some of the world’s richest health data, but that data is fragmented, making it difficult for researchers to access, connect and study at scale. NHS England has been working with regional SDEs to develop the NHS Research Secure Data Environment (SDE) Network which provides streamlined and efficient access to unique regional and local datasets and national data across England, supporting research that improves health and care.
Data does not need to be held in one place for it to be available at UK-scale and these projects support the future direction of the SDE Network by exploring “federated” analysis models that will enable researchers to study data without needing to physically store it all together.
Together, the projects aim to unlock more health data for research, improve data standardisation, strengthen governance processes and support the use of advanced computing and artificial intelligence within secure research environments.