Key Summary
- Baroness Blackwood appointed to lead the HDRS
- Service will simplify and secure access to UK-wide health data
- Aims to accelerate research, improve NHS efficiency, and boost innovation
Baroness Nicola Blackwood has been appointed as chair of the Health Data Research Service (HDRS), which would provide health and care data to researchers and innovators.
The announcement was made by Health Innovation minister Zubir Ahmed, and this appointment comes at a critical juncture as HDRS moves from planning to implementation.
HDRS has been approved as a government company, with incorporation work now in progress, and recruitment is underway for a chief executive officer.
Baroness Blackwood is a leading figure in life sciences, currently chairing Oxford University Innovation and Genomics England, and serving on the boards of BioNTech and RTW Biotech Opportunities.
HDRS recently got a funding worth £600 million from the government and Wellcome, and plans to slash red tape and provide a secure single access point to national-scale datasets.
This will enable researchers to accelerate the discovery of new treatments that will improve patient care.
Currently, obtaining health data can be slow, complex and fragmented, and HDRS is expected to streamline these processes while upholding rigorous safeguards for data security, privacy and ethical oversight.
To protect patient privacy, HDRS will use high security standards with multiple layers of protection - from minimising what researchers can access to using special encryption that makes data unreadable without specific keys.
Researchers will only analyse data in controlled environments where every action is monitored, and the data does not need to leave secure systems.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have agreed in principle to the UK-wide ambition, and steps are being taken to ensure that HDRS brings benefits across all the four nations.
The Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are jointly involved in HDRS.
Ahmed said, “As a practising surgeon, I know how important it is for patients to receive the latest treatment quickly and safely.
“I am delighted to announce Baroness Blackwood’s appointment, who will play an important role in helping us build an NHS fit for the future.”
He hoped that with her proven leadership in life sciences and innovation, Britain will become best place in the world for medical research.
Baroness Blackwood said, “This service will deliver a triple return: better diagnostics and treatments for patients, greater efficiency for the NHS, and increased innovation and investment for the UK.”
