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Health Data Research launches £2m health data science partnerships

Health Data Research UK is seeking a Better Care Partnership to lead a new data science initiative, which could receive up to £1.2M.  Initially funded for a period of three years, the Better Care Partnership will use continuous improvement methods to integrate clinical practice, large scale health data and advanced analytics to deliver insights for improving care for patients across the UK.

Health Data Research UK will also be supporting one year Catalyst Projects to demonstrate examples of how patient care can be improved through data-driven health and care decisions.  Health Data Research UK is teaming up with the Health Foundation to jointly support these 12-month projects, which could each receive up to £200,000.

Organisations putting forward new partnership and project opportunities will be expected to demonstrate how they plan to listen to patients and understand their wishes about how their health data will be used.  They will also be expected to show how patients will be involved at all stages of the project or partnership.  The aim is to use health data responsibly and ethically with a clear focus on improving patient care.

Professor Simon Ball, Medical Director at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and national lead for Health Data Research UK’s Better Care priority, said “As healthcare professionals we make hundreds of decisions a week with our patients. In doing so we aim to decide what will work best for each individual.”

“Electronic healthcare records offer the opportunity to combine patients’ data with information on best practice, so that we can reliably deliver high quality care in complex settings and pressured environments. Beyond that we can use the resulting data on patients’ outcomes and experience, to continuously learn from, and improve on, everyday practice in ways that are applicable across the NHS.”

The closing date for applying for the Catalyst and Better Care Partnership is 11 Mar 2020 at 4pm.