Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust partners with Flatiron Health and Promptly Health to advance real-world data research and patient care

Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has entered into partnerships with Flatiron Health UK and Promptly Health to enhance the use of real-world data (RWD) for clinical research, innovation, and improved healthcare delivery.

The new collaborations will focus on unlocking the potential of clinical data already collected across Newcastle Hospitals’ services to support research and inform care planning. By integrating, standardizing, and analyzing this information more effectively, Newcastle Hospitals aims to generate insights that can inform clinical decision-making and support the development of more targeted and timely interventions.

As one of the largest NHS organizations in England, Newcastle Hospitals holds substantial datasets on care, treatment, and service delivery. However, these data are currently dispersed across different systems and formats, making them difficult to use efficiently. Through the new partnerships, the Trust will gain access to specialist expertise and secure technology to turn this fragmented data into research-ready resources that can support clinical insight, academic collaboration, and the development of new treatments.

“High-quality data can be a vital part of the healthcare mix, giving a clear steer about how to provide the best health outcomes for patients,” said Dr Vicky McFarlane-Reid, director for commercial development and innovation at Newcastle Hospitals. She added that better use of data can support planning, improve services, guide treatment development, and generate insight into how patients are responding to their care:

 “Through our data partnerships, we’ll be able to refine how and when we provide certain types of care, help industry to develop new drugs and medicines and ultimately improve health through combining the expertise and skills of doctors and nurses with better statistical information and insight.”

Flatiron Health UK will contribute its expertise in oncology data structuring, working with the Trust to transform complex and unstructured patient records into high-quality, research-ready datasets. Its multidisciplinary teams, comprising clinicians, epidemiologists, and software engineers, will support efforts to improve understanding of treatment effectiveness, broaden access to clinical trials, and accelerate discoveries in cancer care.

Dr Arun Sujenthiran, clinical lead and senior medical director at Flatiron Health UK, said,

“We are thrilled to partner with Newcastle Hospitals on this collaboration, which represents a pivotal step forward in reshaping how we approach cancer research and care in the UK. By combining our strengths, we aim to accelerate discovery, broaden access to clinical trials, and generate meaningful insights that reflect the diversity of the UK cancer population. Together, we are not only enhancing our understanding of how treatments work across a range of cancers but also unlocking new opportunities to serve patients more equitably and effectively.”

Promptly Health will help Newcastle Hospitals generate real-world evidence (RWE) on care outcomes by establishing secure, federated data environments within the NHS infrastructure. These environments will enable privacy-preserving analysis and harmonize datasets to international standards, supporting research and innovation without moving data externally.

“Newcastle is the birthplace of several inspiring medical breakthroughs,” said Pedro Ramos, CEO at Promptly Health. “We see this partnership as a responsibility to support this extraordinary infrastructure with technology that can deliver accessible, secure, high-quality data. Together, I am confident we will be able to accelerate discovery, enable more collaborative research, and ultimately drive faster, life-changing innovations for the benefit of patients and their families.”

The agreements were signed following a detailed assessment of each partner’s technical capabilities and data governance approach. Both partnerships have received approval from the NHS Health Research Authority.

Strict safeguards will apply to all data shared through these collaborations. All datasets will be de-identified and anonymized, with access permitted only through a rigorous review process for research that demonstrates clear patient benefit. Patients also retain the right to opt out of data sharing. Commercial organizations seeking access to anonymized data will be required to pay a fee. Income generated will be reinvested into NHS services to support patient care.