West Midlands Secure Data Environment
The West Midlands 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.
Due to our population’s diversity, hospitals and other health and social care 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 ethnicities and ages, including children and young people.
Thanks to the rich history of research carried out through our network of universities, hospitals, and other health and care-related bodies, organisations in the West Midlands have resources available through SDE to initiate activities that will improve quality, innovation and discovery.
The information below provides a summary of the services provided to researchers by West Midlands 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.
- Secure virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) on a cloud-based platform.
- Provision of published datasets.
- 'Bring your own', synthetic and unpublished datasets on request.
- Python and R statistical languages plus other available tools.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, clinical, contracting and legal support, and other specialist consultancy roles.
Platform services
A secure workspace within the SDE will be implemented for each project. The standard package for a secure workspace includes a cloud-based VDI providing access to an instance of the platform, a suite of included tools, and support capabilities.
Technical summary
A secure Windows or Linux (Azure) VDI
Standard_D2as_v4 with 2 vCPU and 8GB RAM
Computing power review/increase: flexible compute power to suit your needs
Included tools
Anaconda Python | Azure | Azure BLOB Storage | Azure Data Studio | Azure Fileshare | Git | MS SQL / SSIS | Nexus Repository Manager | Notepad++ | Python | R Statistical Language | SQL Server & Management Studio (SSMS) | VDI - Linux (Azure supported) | VDI - Windows (Azure supported) | Visual Studio (VS) Code
Optional tools
(may incur additional service charges)
Azure Data Factory (ADF) | Azure DevOps | Azure Machine Learning (ML) | Jupyter Notebook | MySQL | Office 365 | PostgreSQL | Power BI | PyCharm Community Edition | RStudio | 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 decommission and removal.
- '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
- clinical support and expertise
- contracting and legal support
- data access application support
- specialist roles, such as data analyst or data scientist
- epidemiological analysis ability
- feasibility
- health implementation
- project management
- retrospective studies
Data services
We can provide curated published datasets from:
- secondary care
- prescribing
- diagnostics
- maternity
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)
- to provide a synthetic dataset
- the option to request an unpublished, bespoke dataset
A full list of available datasets is published on the HDR UK Health Data Gateway.
Contact details
To find out more:
- email the team at [email protected]
- visit the West Midlands SDE website
Last edited: 20 March 2025 11:22 am