News Announcement

Health Data Research UK response to the latest update on the new GP Data for Planning and Research ('GPDPR') collection

21 July 2021

As the national institute for health data science, Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) today welcomes the conditions outlined in Secretary of State, Jo Churchill’s, letter to GPs, that are to be met before the collection of data under the scheme will commence.

Our vision is that every health and care interaction and research endeavour will be enhanced by access to large scale data and advanced analytics. This will only be possible if patients, the public and health and care professionals have both transparency and confidence in how their personal data is being used.

We believe that “everyone should be represented” and that everyone should benefit from scientific discoveries. While patients must have the right and ability to opt-out, we hope that the period of engagement announced this week will minimise the number of people that choose to exercise that right, and those that have opted out feel sufficiently re-assured to opt back in so that their data can help new scientific discoveries that benefit the whole population.

We will continue to work with our public representatives, research community and data custodians to create a trustworthy ecosystem for the access and use of health data, including:

Building trust in data access through public involvement in governance – following through on the recommendations from the HDR UK Public Advisory Board (PAB) and the response of the UK Health Data Research Alliance (the ‘Alliance’)
The principles and requirements of Trusted Research Environments (TREs), to ensure privacy is protected whilst enabling large scale research (we will shortly publish a White Paper for consultation on this)
Transparency of data use through standards and open publication of Data Use Registers by Alliance members and other data custodians; a green paper for which has recently been published for feedback.

Through the wealth of expertise across our community, we will continue to support partner organisations across the sector to unite the UK’s health data, ensuring patients and the public are fully involved in how their data is being used, to improve their health and care.

Read the recommendations from PAB

Read the Alliance’s response

NHS Digital GP Dataset – Joint Statement from the Medical and Social Research Community

NHS Digital primary care data collection for planning and research

Health data poverty in the digital era