Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) has joined the UK Health Data Research Alliance. The alliance has a goal of accelerating the use of health data to improve health and care across the UK.
OUH was one of three new members whose membership was announced on 9 April 2020, the others being the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit (NDAU) at Imperial College London and University of Dundee’s Health Informatics Centre (HIC).
The alliance said these new members would “enrich and expand the range of datasets discoverable through the Innovation Gateway”, a tool for researchers and innovators to search for data relevant to their work. OUH is a renowned centre of clinical excellence and one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the UK, bringing a wide variety of datasets to and the Gateway, covering areas ranging from emergency and routine care to microbiology and pathology.
The UK Health Data Research Alliance was formally launched in February 2019, bringing together health data custodians from across the UK to promote the use of health data to improve care and save lives.
The alliance’s members include many of the leading health and research organisations in the country, which aim to make data more easily accessible for researchers and innovators – in a safe and responsible way – maximising research potential and helping to bring benefits to as many people across the UK as possible. The UK Health Data Research Alliance develops and coordinates the adoption of tools, techniques, conventions, technologies and designs that enable the use of health data in a trustworthy and ethical way for research and innovation.
Its members formulate best practice and standards in areas such as privacy, transparency, public engagement, inclusivity and governance to ensure that health data is shared and used responsibly by researchers and innovators. Any requests to access data held by Alliance members for research and innovation will continue to go through their existing protocols to ensure strict security and data privacy