Four new members join the UK Health Data Research Alliance to help accelerate data-driven research to improve care

At its quarterly board meeting on 14 August 2024, the UK Health Data Alliance (the ‘Alliance’) formally welcomed four new organisations, bringing the total number of members to 107.

The new member organisations are:

• National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP) which is a national total-body positron emission tomography (PET) imaging platform for drug discovery.
• NIHR Yorkshire and Humber-Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) who are a national centre for patient safety research.
• Mother & Infant Research Electronic Data Analysis (MIREDA) who are a partnership which aims is to improve maternal and infant health.
• Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS) who investigate the causes of musculoskeletal and inflammatory conditions and leverages Real World Data to improve people’s quality of life.

These organisations join our mission to accelerate improvements in biomedicine, health and care by encouraging widespread and responsible use of health-relevant data in a trustworthy, ethical way for research and innovation.

The Alliance enables health data research by working together to develop and drive adoption of standards, tools, processes, capabilities and information governance approaches.

Alliance members span the healthcare and research sector, including NHS Trusts, medical research charities, cohorts and biobanks, academia, health data research hubs and AI Centres of Excellence. Over the past 12 months the Alliance has continued to expand and diversify its membership by welcoming non-data custodians and complementary organisations to its network. This has presented opportunities for further collaboration with key institutes and organisations that play a crucial role in the health-data ecosystem such as industry trade associations and public/patient advocacy groups.

Dr Juliana Maynard, Director of Operations and Engagement for the National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP) and Head of Translational Imaging at Medicines Discovery Catapult, says:

“NPIP is delighted to be welcomed into the UK Health Data Research Alliance membership. Access to superior clinical data means we can propel drug discovery and drive world-leading capabilities in detection, diagnosis, and treatment of serious diseases. Accurate statistical records are key for collaboration, NPIP can continue to retrieve vital data for researchers to set a new standard of excellence for UK medical imaging research.”

Daniel Prieto-Alhambra, Prof of Pharmaco- and Device Epidemiology and Section Lead, Health Data Sciences, Botnar Research Centre, part of NDORMS at the University of Oxford, says:

“We are thrilled to become new members to the UK Health Data Research Alliance. We look forward to working with all other partners to deliver on the Alliance’s mission.”

Paola Quattroni, Head of Alliance Strategy and Engagement for HDR UK, says:

“We warmly welcome these new members to the UK Health Data Research Alliance, and we look forward to working together to create a unified approach and to advance trustworthy use of health data across the UK”

For any queries or information about how to join the UK Health Data Research Alliance, email ukalliance@hdruk.ac.uk

More about our new members

• National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP)

The National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP) is the UK’s first-of-its-kind national total-body PET imaging platform for drug discovery.

Driven by a partnership between Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Innovate UK, NPIP is designed to give the UK’s pioneering researchers unprecedented access to technology that will explode the scope of research into multi-organ, complex diseases. NPIP will help connect imaging data and make the UK’s medical research more effective for patient benefit.

• NIHR Yorkshire and Humber-Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC)

The NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) is a £5.8 million national centre, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for patient safety research. It is part of NIHR, is hosted by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with the University of Leeds and sits within the Yorkshire Quality and Safety Research Group.

The PSRCs aim to develop, validate and test innovations, approaches and interventions that have the potential to lead to improvements in patient safety and the safety of health and care services.

• Mother & Infant Research Electronic Data Analysis (MIREDA)

The Mother & Infant Research Electronic Data Analysis (MIREDA), led by the National Centre for Population Health & Wellbeing Research is a partnership which brings together leading researchers from Swansea University, the University of Edinburgh, King’s College London, the University of Nottingham, the University of Birmingham, and the Bradford Institute for Health Research.

MIREDA is funded by The Medical Research Council (MRC) and its aim is to improve maternal and infant health, particularly among disadvantaged groups by developing new resources and tools for research using routinely collected data.

• Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS)

The largest European academic department in its field, NDORMS is part of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford and is a rapidly growing community of more than 500 scientists. This multi-disciplinary programme of research and teaching is supported by a grant portfolio worth over £170m.

Part of NDORMS, the Botnar Institute for Musculoskeletal Sciences hosts the Health Data Sciences division (HDS), led by Prof Daniel Prieto-Alhambra. HDS leads and collaborates in multiple national and international initiatives to generate impactful insights from Real World Data.