Reviews / 2022
Better, broader, safer: using health data for research and analysis
Professor Ben Goldacre · work from 2021 · published 2022
What this was
Review of how NHS data should be used. It argued for trusted research environments, modern data platforms, and open methods, so that analysis can happen without shipping identifiable data around.
Why it sits in the hub
Inquiry after inquiry asks the NHS to read its own signals. Goldacre is about the plumbing that would make that possible without repeating the trust failures of earlier data programmes.
Findings
Finding 1
Data was fragmented, access was slow, and methods were not open enough to be trusted.
Recommendations in this hub
Paraphrase of the public recommendations, not the official text.
- 1In progressNHS England and government
Analyse NHS data inside trusted research environments rather than copying it out.
- 2Partly doneNHS England
Invest in the analyst workforce and in platforms, not only in one-off extracts.