Your health data
What is West Midlands Secure Data Environment (West Midlands SDE)?
The West Midlands Secure Data Environment brings together people’s health information from across the whole region, keeping it safely within the NHS. Data is already used in health research, but being able to study large amounts of information in one place will help researchers learn more about the health conditions that affect people living in the West Midlands. It will also help them find new medicines, treatments and technologies to improve care for everyone.
They’ll learn more about the health conditions that affect lots of us – and the less common ones suffered by just a few. They’ll also discover ways to help people living in areas of the West Midlands where health is poorer and lives are shorter.
Having a much better picture of the health of people in our region will mean they’ll be able to find new medicines and treatments, while reducing the side effects of those we already have.
The West Midlands Secure Data Environment belongs to and is managed by the NHS.
Is my data safe?
NHS and care organisations are committed to keeping people’s information safe and being transparent on how it is used.
Researchers can only use the WMSDE once they have proven their proposal is an appropriate and ethical use of data to improve patient outcomes. Patients are involved in this approval process for the WMSDE, through a Patient and Public Advisory Group (see the get involved page) and Data Trust Committee (DTC).
Once approved, access and use of the data is carefully managed by the NHS throughout, following the Five Safes framework. More information about this framework can be found in the Your data section of their website.
Can I opt out?
Yes you can, more information about this process can be found on the local data opt-out page
