OpenSAFELY Phase Two

OpenSAFELY has unlocked access to an unprecedented scale of health data: the GP records of everyone in England - 59m patients - linked onto other key research and health datasets.

We delivered this access by developing new methods that allow us to provably preserve patients’ privacy while researchers work on confidential medical records. We also developed new methods to help researchers make sense of vast health record datasets more quickly, and reliably.

By building an innovative team of software developers and researchers, pooling skills and knowledge, we then implement our innovative methods in highly productive working tools and services.

These are used by researchers from 22 organisations on 155 projects; the initial OpenSAFELY platform is now a national research resource funded by NHS England.

In phase two we will expand our team, delivering new tools and deployments for better access to sensitive data across a range of new domains including consented cohorts, global health datasets, and non-health datasets from sources such as the retail and education sectors.

We will achieve this by enhancing our methods and tooling around OpenSAFELY deployments and data management; and expanding our structured approach to discovery and evaluation of new datasets, data centres, and research communities.