Scotland is overhauling how it links health records, school data, and benefits information to give policymakers faster, clearer answers on what works and what doesn’t. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed how poorly the UK’s data systems talk to each other. A major government review found that existing data sources were simply not being used to their full potential. This project tackles that gap by building a single, trusted infrastructure for linking administrative and health data across Scotland. Currently, researchers face a maze of approvals and incompatible systems. The team is pushing for a single approvals pathway and one standard process model—a “one front door” approach—to make the system as smooth as the world-leading Nordic population registers. If successful, this will let researchers produce faster, more reliable evidence on issues such as which public services improve child outcomes, how economic shocks affect households, and whether new health policies actually save money. The work also introduces causal AI analysis and better household-level data linkages. The result is not a new drug or device, but a quieter, more consequential shift: a data infrastructure that helps public money go further and delivers timely insights for the people who run Scotland’s schools, hospitals, and social services.
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The Covid-19 pandemic laid bare the shortcomings of the data landscape in the UK. Professor Cathie Sudlow, in her major review, argued that “we are simply not maximising the benefits to society from the already-existing [data] sources”. Faster cross-cutting evidence, using systematically linked health and administrative data, represents a critical opportunity for timely policy insights and evaluations. For Scotland, better linked data can ensure value for public spending to maximise outcomes for the population. Our vision is for a trusted and efficient data research infrastructure in Scotland, underpinned by a need to maximise the efficiencies, sustainability and impact of research for Scotland’s public services. This is at a time when value for money is more important than ever. Together our Co-Directors, leaders from academia and government, have driven forward this vision with a renewed focus on influencing decisions and affecting real change through impactful research which have now developed into five co-produced strategic research themes – developed within a ‘One Team’ approach. Our delivery partners are transforming the research approvals and data operations in Scotland to make the National Safe Haven (NSH) scalable and sustainable, establishing common best practice arrangements and moving to a single front door for data controllers and researchers. To deliver feasible efficiencies for systematically linking health and administrative data, enable better access to economic linked data, and smooth the researcher journey, our ADR delivery partners have co designed and are collectively advocating for the full implementation of One Approvals Pathway and One Process Model. These are a unique selling point that will push the target operating model in Scotland closer to the world-renowned Nordic population-based registers. By the end of the present ADR investment period, Scotland will have set the foundations for a highly flexible, scalable, and sustainable data linkage system. Going forward, our data linkage experts will develop cutting-edge approaches to household and inter-generational linkages, and make greater use of causal AI analysis, and economic data. Collectively, this will ensure we deliver high impact, policy-driven research.
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