Expansion of OpenSAFELY secure research platform

Patient data held by the NHS holds the key to research and analysis; to understand health conditions, effectiveness of treatments and to develop new medicines. Data can also help the NHS understand how to achieve good patient outcomes and make better use of healthcare resources.

OpenSAFELY is a secure platform that enables timely access to pseudonymised patient data for research and planning purposes. It was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and enables life-saving research. Findings allowed the NHS to understand which groups were at increased risk of the virus, evaluated the effectiveness of vaccines and helped the NHS understand changes in patient care during and after the pandemic.

NHS England will now, at the direction of the Secretary of State, pilot an expansion of this research platform to other diseases, such as cancers, a commitment announced in November 2023.

In June 2025, NHS England wrote to GPs to inform them of the intention to expand this service and has worked with primary care colleagues including those at the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to establish the best way to achieve this.

Under the expansion, GPs will make pseudonymised patient data available to the OpenSAFELY platform, developed for the NHS by the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science (University of Oxford). GPs will remain in secure control of your data and no data is moved from GP IT systems as part of this extension.

Researchers will develop their analytical questions in the open. They will receive their analytical results and undertake their analysis within a secure environment within the OpenSAFELY platform, without ever seeing identifiable patient data, ensuring that patient data remains safe and secure at all times.

Further information

To find out more about the expansion of the OpenSAFELY platform, visit the NHS England Digital website:

To find out more about how the OpenSAFELY platform works:

To find out how the NHS uses your data, visit the NHS website: