South West Secure Data Environment

South West Secure Data Environment (SDE) will launch in March 2025, but is open to project requests now. Our goal is to provide faster, fairer, safer access to linked health and care data for research that can improve outcomes across a population of more than 5 million people.

South West SDE can include data from participating health and care providers in integrated care systems across:

• Devon
• Somerset
• Cornwall and Isles of Scilly
• Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
• Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire 
• Gloucestershire

This is expected to include primary, secondary, social care, demographics, mental health, pathology and later imaging and other multimodal data. Our SDE will represent one of England's largest linked coastal and rural data resources, provide datasets for long term conditions and include unique longitudinal cohort studies based in the region.

Our SDE will have expertise to support researchers from ideation, design, and feasibility through to data curation and research services (including analysis). As well as access to single datasets, we can develop bespoke linked assets, and enable 'bring your own data'.

A secure workspace package is developed for each project, including a cloud-based, secure virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) providing access to an instance of the platform, a suite of included tools (including Python, R), and support capabilities.

To find out more about the South West SDE:

• email the team at [email protected]
• visit the South West SDE website