Safe havens: charter

Introduction

The Scottish Safe Haven Network (SSHN) consists of four regional and one national Safe Havens^[1]. Safe Havens are secure facilities that provide a controlled environment for accessing and processing personal health and social care data. These facilities support research and innovation while ensuring the rigorous protection of individual privacy and identity. They incorporate specialised secure computing platforms, known as Trusted Research Environments (TREs) or Secure Data Environments (SDEs), which form the technical infrastructure that enables researchers to securely access and analyse sensitive data. By maintaining stringent safeguards, Safe Havens ensure the ethical use of personal information to advance health and social care research.

This renewed Charter (updating the previous version published in 2015) outlines the expected principles and standards governing the operation of Safe Havens across Scotland. It also describes their collaborative approach to support and advance health informatics research, clinical research, clinical trials, innovation and public health research. TREs are designed to securely process, link, analyse, and manage data from electronic National Health Service (NHS) patient records and other sources. Since the original Safe Haven Charter was published in 2015, the Scottish Safe Haven Network (SSHN) has undergone significant enhancements to meet the evolving needs of health and social care research and innovation^[1].