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HQIP joins UK Health Data Research Alliance

Published: 01 Aug 2019

Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) has joined the UK Health Data Research Alliance to accelerate progress in medicine and health through better access to health data.

The UK Health Data Research Alliance is an independent alliance of health data controllers and acts as an unincorporated, not-for-profit and cost neutral association.  The Alliance was established in February 2019 by Health Data Research UK to encourage widespread access and use of health data to advance human health

HQIP chief executive Jane Ingham said: “This is a very exciting development for the health research community and we’re delighted to add our unique perspective as the organisation responsible for the largest programme of clinical audit in the UK. The Alliance mirrors our commitment to the use of data to measure and improve health services and the patient experience. We look forward to working with Alliance members to support those who use data for improvement and to strengthen data-sharing guidance and protocols.”

Joining HQIP as the latest members of the Alliance are leading health organisations, research institutes and charities, including three of the UK’s largest NHS trusts – Barts Health, University Hospitals Birmingham and Nottingham University Hospitals. The other members are:

  • UK Biobank follows the health and well-being of 500,000 volunteer participants and provides health information, which does not identify them, to approved researchers in the UK and overseas
  • The UK Cystic Fibrosis Registry records health data on people with cystic fibrosis (CF) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who have consented to have their data used for research
  • The Brain Tumour Charity has a patient-led data resource, BRIAN, which brings together a patient’s clinical record with patient-reported information to help identify gaps in clinical care and provide researchers with easy access to data to help accelerate progress towards a cure for brain tumours
  • The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) BioResource represents one of the largest rare disease data resources of its kind, providing anonymised data for researchers to accelerate knowledge and treatments for rare diseases.

Professor Andrew Morris, Director of Health Data Research UK and Chair of the Alliance Board, said: “We warmly welcome these new members to join the UK Health Data Research Alliance.  Each brings high value datasets as well as new approaches to developing tools and techniques to use diverse health data at scale to make improvements to people’s lives through research.”

Research based on data that reflects diversity of culture, healthcare conditions and aspects such as race, ethnicity, gender and age improves the ability to generalise results and enables new discoveries and understanding about disease. In turn this provides fairer and more equal access to the latest treatments and medical technologies, benefiting as many people across the UK as possible.

For more information, visit the Heath Data Research UK website