In April 2025, the UK Government announced a landmark £600 million investment to establish a Health Data Research Service (HDRS) — a secure, single access point to NHS datasets in England. This initiative, backed by Wellcome and central to the Life Sciences Sector Plan, aims to address long-standing challenges in health data access for researchers.

But as DARE UK rightly points out, ambition alone won’t be truly transform healthcare, the HDRS must be built on a foundational principle: federation.

Federation: Connecting What Already Works

Health data in the UK resides in numerous Trusted Research Environments (TREs) and Secure Data Environments (SDEs) — each with robust privacy protections. Rather than centralising sensitive data into a new mega-repository, HDRS should build secure bridges between these existing environments.

This federated approach enables:

  • Remote analysis: Researchers send analysis code to run within local TREs/SDEs, returning only anonymised insights.
  • Guarded data convoys: De-identified data moves securely between environments under strict governance.
  • Hybrid models: Combining both methods for complex studies.

These mechanisms preserve data custodianship and public trust while unlocking the power of distributed datasets.

TREvolution: From Blueprint to Reality

DARE UK’s TREvolution project, funded by UKRI, is standardising operations across TREs/SDEs. It’s developing tools for federated analysis, semi-automated output checking, and shared standards for data formatting, access, and auditing.

Early adopter projects are already piloting these capabilities in over 10 live environments — including NHS sub-national SDEs, the national TRE in Wales, and the UK Data Service.

What’s Next for HDRS?

To succeed, HDRS must:

  • Embed federation from day one
  • Mandate interoperability via open standards
  • Scale up existing infrastructure
  • Prioritise public and patient involvement with transparency and accountability

This vision extends beyond health. As the UK explores a National Data Library (NDL), federation offers a model for cross-domain research infrastructure — spanning education, environment, social welfare, and more.

A Global Opportunity

Federation also positions the UK for international collaboration. The European Network of Trusted Research Environments (EOSC-ENTRUST) has already published a blueprint informed by DARE UK’s Federated Architecture.

As we build HDRS, the question isn’t just how — but who will help assemble it. The challenge is complex, but the opportunity to deliver public benefit is transformational.

eScience Lab in TREvolution

eScience Lab is a partner in TREvolution with a particular focus on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and transparent analysis of sensitive data and use of RO-Crate. In addition to working with the DARE UK early adopters, we are joining this with our effort on the federated analytics programme in Health Data Research UK, and the European architecture for trusted research environments in EOSC-ENTRUST.

This blog post is syndicated from DARE UK post by Westley Igbo https://dareuk.org.uk/news-and-events/the-600-million-question-how-to-make-the-health-data-research-service-work/