UK unveils £600m investment in health data research

The UK government has said it will invest up to £600 million ($764 million) in the creation of a centralised health data platform, creating a single point of contact for medical researchers seeking to tap into NHS data.

Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer said in a speech on the UK economy – in the wake of the introduction of US tariffs – that the new Health Data Research Service (HDRS) will make sure that patient data held within the NHS is "unlocked for the public good."

The centre will be located at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire and the Wellcome Trust is providing around £100 million of the funding for its creation and operation.

While its primary function will be to serve as a gatekeeper for researchers seeking access to anonymised primary care and secondary care resources and mortality data, so project organisers don't have to sift through multiple sources, it will also support clinical research by matching patients to trials.

Starmer has also said clinical trials will be "fast-tracked" with the time it takes to get a trial set up cut to 150 days by March 2026, down from around 250 days in 2022, part of an effort to reverse a steady decline in commercial clinical trials in the UK in recent years.

"Through this new drive, patients will have improved access to new treatments and technologies," said Starmer. "We already saw the power of health data during the pandemic and this will allow the NHS to make huge strides in patient care."

The creation of the HDRS will fulfil one of the recommendations in the Sudlow Review published last year, which found that accessing NHS patient data can take months or even years, hampering medical research.

"The measures I am announcing today will turbo-charge medical research and deliver better patient care. I am determined to make Britain the best place in the world to invest in medical research," said Starmer. "That is not just good for patients and their families. It means growth that puts more money in working people's pockets with more, better paid jobs."

The initiative has been broadly welcomed by the life sciences industry and research organisations, including Professor Sir Rory Collins, principal investigator and chief executive of UK Biobank, who said it has the potential to be "truly transformational."

"UK Biobank has already demonstrated the power of joining up long-term data by producing 15,000 scientific papers, but filling in the gaps using NHS data will allow researchers to carry out analyses that were not previously possible," he added.

"The government have already outlined their support for linking GP data to consented cohorts like UK Biobank, as doing so will add a richness to the data, unlocking unprecedented insights into the causes of disease."

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) also applauded the initiative, saying it shows the PM "understands the huge opportunity for the UK to be a global leader in clinical research, and that unlocking research access to health data and speeding up the set-up of clinical trials are fundamental to achieving that goal."

It cautioned however that the industry must be involved in the design and implementation of the HDRS as a major investor in R&D for new medicines.

The BioIndustry Association (BIA), meanwhile, said that the HDRS could be a major step forward in improving the data access landscape for smaller life sciences companies "which are "developing solutions to help us prevent, detect and treat disease," adding: "Matching the benefits of the UK’s health data with the entrepreneurial elan of our best small companies maximises the growth of health and wealth across our nation."

The announcement follows the recent decision to scrap NHS England and comes ahead of the much-anticipated publication of a new 10-year plan for the NHS, expected in the coming weeks.