The Government of UK has announced a £37.5m investment to set up new research centers which will connect regional healthcare data with biomedical & genetic information. As per reliable sources, around three to five ‘Digital Innovation Hubs’ would be set up in the upcoming three years.  

The investment is being sourced from the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and the hubs will cover a population of more than three to five million people. These hubs are likely to complement the NHS Digital Data Services Platform and NHS England’s Local Health & Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) program, cite sources.

These digital hubs would extract data from GP hospitals, practices, social & community care providers for research purposes. The combined datasets will create a foundation for NHS scientists, researchers, and clinicians to find new treatments for chronic diseases like asthma, cancer & heart ailments.

Matt Hancock, Secretary of Health & Social Care, said the hubs would let researchers unlock new advances by leveraging huge potential of data so the NHS will lead the way in technologies which would improve patient care. The program is part of the second wave of £210 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and focuses on the early diagnosis of diseases and precision medicine.

Sources familiar with the development claim that the upcoming hubs will be led by the national institute for data science in health, Health Data Research UK, on behalf of UK Research & Innovation.

Professor Andrew Morris, Director of HDR UK, asserted the project will help deliver direct benefits to the NHS and 65 million citizens of the nation. He pointed to the international research findings which indicate that the best performing health systems, in terms of quality of care and patient safety, are the ones based on research & data.

HDR UK stated that it will work closely with regulatory bodies & follow established guidelines to ensure transparency in how & why data is stored, used and shared.