02/09/2025
Expansion of the OpenSAFELY secure COVID-19 research platform
NHS England has been directed by the government to establish and operate the OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service and the OpenSAFELY Data Analytics Service. These services provide a secure environment that supports research, clinical audit, service evaluation and health surveillance for COVID-19 and other purposes.
Each GP practice remains the controller of its own GP patient data but is required to let approved users run queries on pseudonymised patient data. This means identifiers are removed and replaced with a pseudonym.
Only approved users are allowed to run these queries, and they will not be able to access information that directly or indirectly identifies individuals.
Patients who do not wish for their data to be used as part of this process can register a type one opt-out with their GP. For additional information please use the link below
OpenSAFELY is a secure analytics platform for electronic health records in the NHS, delivering analyses across more than 58 million patients' records.