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Wessex Secure Data Environment

The Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE) provides secure access to data and a range of services to accelerate research and innovation leading to improved patient care. It is part of NHS England's Data for Research and Development Programme and is a member of the NHS Research Secure Data Environment Network.

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Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE) will unlock the potential of NHS data to support research, create life-saving new treatments and medicines, and bring wider benefits to patients and our NHS. Wessex SDE is a fully NHS-led and owned project, providing secure access to data and a range of services to accelerate research and innovation. It is part of NHS England's Data for Research and Development Programme and is a member of the NHS Research Secure Data Environment Network.

Wessex has a diverse rural, urban and coastal population and socioeconomic deprivation. Our hospitals and other providers in the region have a wealth of health and social care data spanning a number of decades. This can be used for research to provide much-needed insight into an extensive range of diseases and health conditions across different ages, social demographics and ethnicities to improve care and sustainability of the NHS.

Thanks to the rich history of research carried out through our network of universities, hospitals, and other health and care-related bodies, we have established a close working relationship with our integrated care boards and our embedded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) infrastructure to deliver quality data and research insights at speed.

The information below provides a summary of the services provided to researchers by Wessex SDE. Contact us if you have a specific requirement not explicitly identified below - we will be delighted to discuss how we can best support you.

Key features
  • Secure cloud-based platform with an easy-to-use interface for any industry and academic analysis needs.
  • Provision of study specific datasets for access within workspaces.
  • Multi-modal data support (Clinical Data + Images + -Omic).
  • 'Bring your own', synthetic and unpublished datasets on request.
  • 'Bring your own' analytical packages, scripts and docker based tools.
  • Python and R statistical packages as standard and enabled by a Jupyter Notebook environment.
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning ready.
  • Additional services such as statistical analysis, health economic analysis, protocol writing, RWD monitoring and many more available on request.

Platform services

A secure workspace within the SDE will be implemented for each approved study project. This includes:

  • a user interface for essential data grid viewing/analytics/cohort dashboards and a Jupyter Notebook and Nextflow environment for more advanced analytics
  • base platform offer includes an initial environment capable of most clinical analytical needs
  • larger infrastructure (such as GPUs, more storage for images or -omic data) available on request

Technical summary

A secure Windows (Azure) VDI.

Included tools

Any docker image containing your analytical tools | Azure BLOB Storage | Azure Fileshare | Azure Virtual Desktop | Cohort Builder | Git connectivity (Secured by Wessex SDE) | Jupyter Notebook | Python | R Statistical Language and R Studio

Optional tools

(examples only – may incur additional service charges)

Azure Data Factory (ADF) | Azure DevOps | Azure Machine Learning (ML) | MATLAB | MySQL | Office 365 | Power BI | PyCharm Community Edition | SAS | SPSS | Spyder | Stata | Visual Studio (VS) Code extensions.

Additional platform services

'Bring your own tool': users have the ability to bring their own tool to use for analysis purposes within the secure workspace.

Secure workspace setup, decommission and removal.

Long term cold storage of data for any regulatory submission needs.

'Bring your own code': users have the ability to bring their own code to be used within the secure workspace.

Computing power review/increase: flexible compute power to suit your needs.

Consultancy services

We offer a range of consultancy services to support research projects. These include:

  • AI and machine learning solutioning and advice
  • clinical support and expertise
  • contracting and legal/information and data governance support
  • data access application support
  • specialist roles, such as data analyst or data scientist
  • epidemiological analysis
  • deep feasibility studies
  • health economic analysis
  • project management
  • RWD monitoring (per recent FDA guidance)
  • retrospective studies as an initial focus area - please enquire regarding your prospective study needs

Data services

We can provide curated published datasets from:

  • secondary care
  • prescribing
  • diagnostics
  • community
  • mental health
  • mortality
  • maternity
  • demographics
  • genomics
  • social care

In addition to curated datasets, we also offer: 

  • a bring your own data service (publicly available/reference)
  • a bring your own data service (identifiable/cohort)
  • a synthetic dataset option

A full list of available datasets is published on the HDR UK Health Data Gateway.

Contact details

To find out more:

Last edited: 31 March 2025 9:39 am