The Health Data Research Service has been promised up to £600 million to make health research easier. Britain is building one secure front door for approved researchers, which is excellent news for anyone who has ever met a corridor with seven doors and a committee guarding each handle.
Health Data Research Service opens one door
Government and Wellcome announced plans to create the Health Data Research Service as a secure single access point for national scale health datasets. The aim is to help approved researchers study major health questions without spending half the project asking which portal contains the portal that explains the other portals.
The proposal is serious. Better access to data can help research move faster. The comic tension begins when a country famous for administrative treasure hunts announces a single front door and immediately gives the door a stakeholder group, a privacy meeting and a laminated visitor badge.
The Health Data Research Service is meant to cut red tape while protecting sensitive information. That is a sensible ambition. It also gives every filing cabinet in Whitehall a chance to describe itself as an essential participant in the national data journey.
A secure route meets a very confident cupboard
Researchers need trustworthy data, clear rules and a route that does not end with somebody emailing a spreadsheet to ask whether the route is still open. The planned service could bring those pieces together. Its first real test will be whether a scientist can reach a dataset before their grant develops a pension plan.
The funding is a large commitment to medical research. It will not automatically make every form shorter. Forms are resilient creatures. Give one a digital home and it returns wearing a password, a dropdown menu and a polite note asking whether the applicant has considered attaching the form they are currently completing.
For now, the Health Data Research Service is a plan with a clear purpose and a very large front door. If it succeeds, researchers may finally find the information they need. If it does not, the country will at least have built a secure single access point from which to admire the queue.
