UK establishes Health Data Research Service to improve NHS data access and accelerate medical innovation

The UK Government and Wellcome have announced the creation of the Health Data Research Service, supported by up to £600 million in funding, to improve access to NHS data for approved and simplify secure access to de-identified NHS data for approved researchers. The new service aims to accelerate medical research, improve patient outcomes, and support faster clinical trials while upholding gold-standard privacy protections.

A single, secure access point for health data

With £100 million from Wellcome and up to £500 million in government funding, the new service will provide a single, secure entry point to de-identified datasets, including primary care, hospital, and mortality data. It will be based at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire, UK.

Researchers currently face significant delays due to fragmented systems, inconsistent data standards and multiple approval processes. Many must submit separate applications to access data from different NHS sources, making it difficult to analyze information across regions and slowing progress in understanding diseases. The new service is designed to streamline this process and remove such obstacles.

“There is so much more we could learn from health data in this country by joining it up better,” said John-Arne Røttingen, Chief Executive Officer of Wellcome. “Providing a single, secure service for approved researchers will take away the significant overhead associated of locating, accessing, and comparing disparate datasets. It will create opportunities for patients to access new treatments through trials that would otherwise have been hard to arrange or conduct.”

Unlocking insights to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment

By harnessing combined data at a national scale, the service is expected to support deeper insights into human health and disease, leading to improved approaches to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Development of the service will be shaped through consultation with patient groups and academic, clinical and commercial researchers, ensuring public benefit and patient needs remain central. It will also build on work across the NHS to enhance the accessibility of data for research.

The service was a core recommendation of the Sudlow Review, which was commissioned by the chief medical officer for England, the UK national statistician and NHS England’s national director of transformation. Commenting on the launch of the Health Data Research Service, UK health data expert and author of the Sudlow Review, Professor Cathie Sudlow, remarked:

“It has the potential to be a game-changer, by accelerating secure, trustworthy, data-driven research to improve patient care and public health for the tens of millions of people in this country and beyond.” 

Faster clinical trials to benefit patients sooner

The Health Data Research Service forms part of a broader strategy to improve the speed and efficiency of clinical trials in the UK. By March 2026, the government aims to reduce the time it takes to set up a clinical trial to 150 days, down from more than 250 days in 2022. This will be achieved by cutting administrative burdens, standardizing contracts across NHS organizations and publishing trust-level data to support greater transparency. The service is intended to support more efficient research into disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, particularly in areas such as cancer, dementia, heart disease, depression, arthritis and infectious outbreaks. It is also expected to attract further investment in the UK’s life sciences sector and drive economic growth.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the announcement as a key part of his government’s long-term strategy:

“The measures I am announcing today will turbo-charge medical research and deliver better patient care. I am determined to make Britain the best place in the world to invest in medical research.”

Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, added,

 “Improving health for future patients and future generations depends on medical research, and that depends on data. Bringing health data together will allow scientists to understand diseases, to prevent them and to develop new treatments more quickly and more effectively to improve future health.”

Maintaining gold-standard privacy protections

Patient confidentiality will remain central to the new system. Access to data will be strictly controlled and limited to de-identified information. The service will not export any data; instead, all analysis will take place within existing secure data environments (SDEs), managed by the appropriate data controllers.

“The Health Data Research Service will remove the complexities of accessing data through multiple systems while making sure the very highest security and privacy measures remain in place, including using secure data environments to protect patient confidentiality and ensure NHS data doesn’t leave NHS IT systems,” said Dr Vin Diwakar, National Director of Transformation at NHS England.

Building research capacity and improving outcomes

The new service is expected to deliver long-term benefits by reducing delays and improving the quality of health research in the UK. Professor Andrew Morris, Director of Health Data Research UK, said,

“The system remains slow and fragmented which means that safe and secure research using the data is delayed or prevented for months and years... A Health Data Research Service was the main recommendation of the Sudlow Review, which offered a set of solutions to tackle these problems and for which Health Data Research UK provided the secretariat.”

Professor James Leiper, Director of Research at the British Heart Foundation, welcomed the investment:

“Ensuring cardiovascular researchers have simplified access to the wealth of data the NHS holds, while also ensuring security and patient confidentiality, will place the UK at the cutting edge of data science for health.”

The Health Data Research Service is intended to unlock the full potential of NHS data, enabling more collaborative, timely and impactful research. By addressing existing barriers and ensuring rigorous safeguards are in place, the service aims to benefit both patients and the wider healthcare system.