Launched at the start of 2020, the Health Data Research Innovation Gateway provides a common entry point to discover, explore and request access to UK health datasets, view projects, educational courses, publications and tools – all vital for research and innovation.

Providing access to more and higher quality datasets enables more research to take place, will lead to new discoveries and better understanding of diseases. A greater number of datasets also means that research will better reflect the diversity of health conditions and aspects such as race, ethnicity, gender and age, leading to wider and more representative findings. In turn, this provides fairer and more equal access to the latest treatments and medical technologies, benefiting as many people across the UK as possible.

So, reaching 500 datasets is a key milestone, not only for Health Data Research UK but also for the wider health research community  we represent and support – across academia, industry and healthcare . Indeed, this milestone has been reached in an incredibly short window, with 90 additional datasets added since launch in January 2020.

Two of the most recent sets of data added are from NHS Digital, a key partner, both of which are hugely rich valuable and important assets for the UK’s health research community:

Data from 98% of the UK’s GP surgeries and pseudonymised patient-level data about medicines dispensed in community settings will both support the vital research into COVID-19 – to understand its effects, identify trends and risks to public health, help control and prevent the spread of the virus, put in place more effective measures to respond to the virus, as well as enhance progress towards finding treatments and vaccines.

Crucially, there is detailed metadata in place for datasets in the Gateway. As the number of datasets in our Gateway continues to grow, the information about these datasets becomes increasingly important, allowing analysts and researchers to more quickly identify and understand the most relevant datasets for their needs.

There are several new and exciting developments taking place in the Gateway; and as the number of datasets and functionality continues to progress, we will keep you updated.

Explore the Gateway