Health and social care - data strategy: 2025 update - progress and priorities

Research and Innovation

We will support research and innovation by facilitating safe access to health and social care data for industry, innovators and researchers, so that we can work together to develop better ways of working, better treatments, new medicines and improved services for care in Scotland.

Progress so far:

• Safe Haven Charter – RDS in partnership with Scottish Government have refreshed the Safe Haven Charter which was published on 27 March 2025. The refreshed charter sets the strategic direction of travel for Safe Havens in Scotland and provides Health Boards with reassurance that Safe Havens operate in a safe and secure manner and meet accreditation standards. This should encourage Health Boards to share their data with the Safe Havens. It also provides more streamlined Information Governance processes, reducing the burden on the approvals process between Safe Havens. This will improve the ease and speed at which researchers can access data for research and innovation purposes. This is key to ensuring data is available for research and innovation in a timely manner, and to supporting the health and social care sector to make use of new and innovative ways of working to improve and transform delivery of care as set out in the Service Renewal Framework.
• Unlocking the Value of Data – The Scottish Government published its response to the Independent Expert Group for the Unlocking the Value of Data Programme report: SG response - gov.scot on 10 January 2025. The response sets out the Scottish Government’s policy position on private sector access to public sector data for public good. RDS have developed a framework to operationalise this policy that will include access to de-identified case level health data for research purposes by the commercial sector.
• Improving Approaches to Assessing Research Study Feasibility and Recruiting Participants – The Scottish Health Research Register & Biobank (SHARE | RegisterforSHARE), funded by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office, continues to expand with over 305,000 people in Scotland willing to be invited to take part in health research and for health records to be securely searched to see if those registered may be suitable for approved studies. SHARE is supporting the delivery of research in Scottish NHS Boards and Universities.

Priorities for 2025:

• Safe Havens – We will undertake communications activities with Health Boards and Caldicott Guardians to raise awareness of the revised Charter and the benefits of sharing data with the Safe Havens for research purposes and provide reassurance regarding accreditation.
• Unlocking the Value of Data – We will operationalise the policy position on private sector access to public sector personal data by undertaking pilots which involve controlled industry access to public sector personal data to test the policy in a controlled environment. As part of this RDS have developed a framework to operationalise the policy in a research context. The framework will support easier and faster access to public sector data for research purposes with the initial scope focusing on health data.
• Improving Approvals Process – RDS have developed a draft Code of Practice (CoP) to streamline the approvals process for accessing data. A plan to implement the CoP will be developed aligning with wider activities that are underway for further improving the approvals process for accessing data for research purposes.
• Engagement – We will engage with both the public and industry on access to public sector data.
• Researcher Access Service – We will continue to widen the availability of data that can be accessed via the Researcher Access Service.

Researcher Access Service - Case Study

The Researcher Access Service was launched in April 2024 to streamline access to data for research purposes. The service initially enables access to nine of PHS most requested datasets through a streamlined information governance pathway which takes a risk-based assessment at the first stage of the approvals process. If the project meets the criteria for the Researcher Access Service, the application is fast-tracked through a streamlined pathway via a dedicated approval panel, enabling faster access to data for certain projects, without compromising on the security of the data. The Researcher Access Service has delivered access to data in around a third of time that the traditional route for researchers has. The time taken to grant access to data for researchers has reduced from an average of eight months to three months, from researchers applying for data to them starting their analysis.