Good TREs work
- Good TREs work, and can be seen to work safely — any project secrecy is a choice;
- Different TRE approaches are optimal for different tasks for different reasons — Five safes vs custom outputs.
- Transparency must cover all users — internal and external — and differences of process between them must be visible.
Good “Trustworthy Research Environments” Work; bad environments are like toxic waste seeping through the data ecosystem. There’s eternal pressure to turn good governance into weak governance so those who don’t qualify today can get data tomorrow.
Every project in every TRE should be listed in a public data uses register, and all of the data available to any project should be publicly listed. NHS England and OpenSAFELY both do this. NHS England has spent the last couple of years building a network of “Secure Data Environments”, partial lists are published of the different data they hold.
Name | Consensual | Safe | Transparent (how many projects; notes) |
---|---|---|---|
National | |||
NHSE (interactive) | ? variable (partial) | ✅ | ✅ (many; only some) |
OpenSAFELY | ✅ Yes for GPDOO | ✅ | ✅ (many) (best) |
MHRA CPRD | Yes (GPDOO & NDOO) | Not yet, but beginning | incomplete (many) |
Regions | |||
East of England | ✅ Yes (respects NDOO)(has no GP data?) | unclear | ✅ (1) |
Kent, Medway and Sussex | Unclear? (so no? has GP data) | unclear | ✅ (2) |
London | ❌ no (has GP data, ignores GPDOO; unclear on NDOO) | unclear | Limited detail (tens) |
North East and North Cumbria | ✅ Yes (respects NDOO) | unclear | ✅ (2) |
Thames Valley and Surrey | ❌ No (ignores NDOO; has no GP data?) | unclear (possibly no) | No (0) |
West Midlands | ✅ Yes (respects NDOO and GPDOO) | unclear | ✅ (4) |
Wessex | ✅ Yes (respects NDOO, has no GP data?) | unclear | ✅ (1) |
Yorkshire and Humber | ✅ Yes (respects NDOO, has no GP data?) | unclear | ✅ (many) |
(as of the 24 March 2025 none of the other regions are listed as operational). | |||
NHSE’s Federated Data Platform | ❗No (mostly used for direct care – publicly at least, but it is not an informed choice by patients) | Potentially (entirely policy) | ❌ No (but possible) |
Non-NHS Environments | |||
ONS Secure Research Service | ❌ No (no for most data, no for most NHS data, but yes for GP Data) | yes | Yes |
ONS Integrated Data Service | ❌ No (no for most data, no for most NHS data, but yes for GP Data) | Yes | Partial (gov/ONS projects not listed) (24) |
Notes:
Progress
Of 1710 projects across 531 organisations in the 2024 release registers, 18 organisations were TRE only, and there were 153 organisations with at least one project that used the NHS Digital safe environment (data from TheySoldItAnyway.com and NHS England.
Last updated: 2025-04-02