Health Data Research UK

Understanding the experiences of health data users in industry, academia and the NHS

Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) has a mission to unite the UK’s health and care data. Its work helps to ensure that patient care and research are enhanced through improved, safe and trustworthy access to large scale data and advanced analytics.

To help focus HDR UK’s engagement work and to inform the development of their data services strategy, we were asked to map and explore the needs of data users working in key roles across the UK in industry, universities and the NHS. 

To understand more about this complex and fast-moving landscape we: 

• Involved HDR UK teams in an interactive audience mapping session to capture their existing knowledge of health data users and to reach consensus on some of their engagement priorities

• Conducted in-depth interviews with researchers and analysts currently seeking data through HDR UK’s Innovation Gateway, to understand their experiences as well as what they most valued about HDR UK’s work

• Sought out and interviewed a cross section of data users new to HDR UK who were working in highly relevant business development, analyst and research roles, including in major research institutes and in health technology, AI and pharma companies.

We shared the findings in a series of reports that set out the barriers faced by those accessing health data, their motivations and priorities, together with ideas around the communications they would engage with and their key professional networks and channels. 

The depth of the insights also enabled us to highlight important themes for HDR UK’s five-year strategy, and to develop use cases that would help focus the design of their services around four major types of data enquiry. 

The work was incredibly timely. We were able to tap into a real appetite and enthusiasm from data users to hear more about HDR UK’s work, and to ensure their experiences were highlighted at a critical stage in the development of its services.