Data Sustains Life Project
CIRU collaborates on world-first data project to reduce road crash deaths
Another recent and key collaboration for CIRU’s AXIS team is with the PRANA (Pre-hospital Research and Audit Network) Programme. PRANA is a national clinical audit of pre-hospital critical care which serves as a national collaborative asset and provides a secure and confidential high quality clinical registry of pre-hospital critical care activity in the UK.
Most recently, PRANA have been awarded £500,000 in funding by the Department for Transport and the Road Safety Trust to launch a world-first initiative known as the Data Sustains Life project. For the first time, the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) are working alongside this project which aims to reduce road deaths by linking health records and road traffic collision data.
TRL’s Head of Transport Safety Dr Phil Martin said:
“This project is a global first. By anonymously linking health data with road safety data, we can unlock new insights that will enable us to approach road safety with a fresh perspective. Our goal is to ensure that no more lives are unnecessarily lost on Britain’s roads.”
PRANA is one of the first projects to use the Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE), which is where CIRU comes into play - following close workings with partners to develop the infrastructure and operating procedures that ensure NHS data is handled safely, ethically, and transparently.
The SDE is a new groundbreaking initiative designed to accelerate life-changing medical research while keeping NHS patient data safe and secure. The Wessex SDE is a secure, NHS-owned platform that stores and links patient data for research, ensuring it is used responsibly and for public benefit. Built to the highest standards of security and privacy, the project is part of the national NHS Research SDE Network, funded by NHS England and the Department of Health & Social Care.
Dr Hyde is a paediatric intensive care consultant at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and a pre-hospital critical care consultant with Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.
He said: “The concept of linking these different data sources was thought to be impossible, but every idea has its time. Enabled by the Wessex Secure Data Environment, this project will allow UK researchers to identify patterns, risk factors, and critical points for intervention. The ultimate goal is to use these new data to inform better policies and strategies to bring down the number of fatalities and serious injuries.”
Other collaborators on this project include: the UHS Research Leaders Programme, Southampton Emerging Therapies and Technologies Centre, Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, Dorset Police, Dorset Council, and the Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner. The project has also benefitted from seed funding from Wessex Health Partners, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), and the NIHR Wessex Experimental Medicine Network.
Other related resources:
UHS “World-first data project to reduce road crash deaths” press release
