Your health and care records help us care for you. They also have the power to unlock new treatments, medicines and devices.
Lots of different places hold parts of your health and care record. GP, hospitals, mental health, voluntary and social care services can all hold a piece.
This information helps healthcare workers care for you. But it can also help researchers make new discoveries. When we can link lots of records together it helps us spot patterns. This knowledge can improve the health of people who live nearby and future generations.
How will my information be accessed?
Researchers and planners contact the NHS to ask for information from patient records. This information is hard to access and share.
In time, this way of sharing will stop. Researchers will need to apply to a Secure Data Environment. This is a specially designed space for health and care research and planning. This keeps the information in the NHS and only approved people can see it.
How is my information kept safe?
Anyone who wants to access the Secure Data Environment needs to send a request. We remove details like your name so the researcher wont know who you are.
They must:
The project must:
Biomedical companies and universities can develop new treatments based on the information from lots of people with similar conditions.
Public health experts can better plan healthcare services, so the right services are there for local people’s needs.
Researchers can analyse patient data to see which treatments work best, leading to even better care.
You can also find out more about how patient records benefit research and planning on the NHS England Powered by Data website
