NHS Digital has awakened with recent news around funding and research using data in the new Trusted Research Environment (TRE).

• Of the government’s commitment of £260 million for life sciences manufacturing and health research, £200 million will go toward research into diagnostics and treatment. The NHS data will be deployed through Trusted Research Environments (TRE) and digital clinical trial services, with the intent that the data will be made available to researchers faster and more securely. Of the remaining funding of £60 million, it will be distributed through the new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF). The committing agencies are the Departments for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Health and Social Care (DHSC). Release
• The TRE provides approved researchers from trusted organizations with timely and secure access to health and care data. According to NHS Digital’s information page, the TRE is a “secure data platform with the analytical and statistical tools to support researchers in conducting their work. Their findings can then be exported safely, ensuring the formats and analyses are approved and sent to authorised users.”
• The first new TRE project announced is a cross-research project to discover the impact of COVID on cancer patients and services with DATA-CAN, the UK’s Health Data Research Hub for Cancer, curated by NHS Digital’s National Disease Registration Service. The TRE datasets have de-identified data that is available for analysis without being downloaded, which secures data for analysis and research. NHS release