CPRD Safe Programme

Overview

CPRD has significantly expanded the amount of data available for research, increasing volumes fourfold from 15 million patients in 2015, to circa 60 million patients in 2022. CPRD has also increased the number of linked datasets that it supports to 17 and increased its client base by over 30%. In conjunction to this increase in data, regulations governing how health data are provided, maintained, accessed, and used have significantly tightened. Government and NHS reviews on the efficient and safe use of health data, only further underlined that organisations holding healthcare data for research should transition to a trusted research environment (TRE) / secure data environment (SDE)-based model of data access for NHS patient care datasets. In 2022 CPRD embarked on the development of a TRE, branded as CPRD Safe, that provided clients with access to CPRD's healthcare datasets under appropriate approvals and contracts. As it stands, CPRD Safe provides the functionality for current CPRD clients to conduct research on CPRD data using a suite of analytical tools such as python, R, and Stata. CPRD has been awarded funding over the next three financial years (2026/27; 2027/28; 2028/29), to be spent on CPRD Safe enhancements that will add advanced capabilities and ensure that CPRD remains at the forefront of public health benefitting research.