DHSC announces creation of £600m Health Data Research Service
The government and the Wellcome Trust will invest up to £600 million to create a Health Data Research Service, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced.
It will bring access to data for medical research into one location, meaning that researchers do not have to navigate different systems or make multiple applications for information for the same project.
In a press release, published on 7 April 2025, Starmer said that the measures would “turbo-charge medical research and deliver better patient care”.
The health data research service will be housed at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire, where Wellcome is building R&D lab and office spaces to expand the campus’s capacity for genomics and biodata companies.
Wes Streeting, health secretary, said the plans would “unleash the unparalleled power of NHS data”.
“We will unblock the barriers preventing our greatest scientists from safely accessing what they need to save patients’ lives – while keeping data secure.
“This venture will drive vital investment into the UK and put us at the epicentre of breakthroughs in science.
“If we can combine the care of the NHS with the ingenuity of our world-leading scientists, our health service could truly become the envy of the world,” Streeting said.
Under the plans, clinical trials will be fast-tracked to accelerate the development of the medicines and therapies, with the time it takes to set up a clinical trial cut from 250 days (based on the latest data collected in 2022) to 150 days by March 2026.
DHSC states that it will achieve this by cutting bureaucracy and standardising contracts, so that time is not wasted on negotiating separate details across different NHS organisations and ensuring transparency by publishing trust level data for the first time.
Dr Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHS England, said: “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.
“We’ll continue to seek feedback from the public as we develop the service and will only allow access to NHS data where there is likely to be a direct benefit to NHS patients – so that health researchers can get the data they need faster, and patients can benefit from advances in treatments much sooner.”
The plans follow an independent review of the UK’s health data, published in November 2024, by Professor Cathie Sudlow, chief scientist of Health Data Research UK.
Responding to the government’s plans, Sudlow said: “The service should enable faster, more reliable access for approved researchers to the data needed to tackle society’s most pressing health research needs – to develop and test new approaches for preventing, diagnosing and treating health conditions such as cancer, dementia, heart disease, depression, arthritis and infectious outbreaks.
“It should support better studies, quicker answers for the health and care system and, ultimately, faster, better outcomes for patients and their families.”
