New vision for NHS health data has potential to drive health improvement

A plan to revolutionise the use of NHS data through the development of a coherent, secure, and streamlined system has been presented to the government.

It promises to unlock the potential of lifetimes of data from millions of patients to drive new research, health improvement, and innovation.

Better, Broader, Safer: Using Health Data for Research and Analysis1 has been produced by a team led by Ben Goldacre, professor of evidence based medicine at the University of Oxford, who was asked just over a year ago to make recommendations on improving the use of health data in England.

The government has already accepted one of the main recommendations in the report by agreeing …