What type of visitor are you?
Patient/Public
Learn more about PIONEER, how we operate, the health and care projects we have supported, and what your choices are for the use of your health data.
Using health data for research
Learn more about the data PIONEER holds, and how to access it.
PIONEER partnerships
Learn who our partners are, and how you can become one.
Why PIONEER
PIONEER is a Health Data Research Hub: a centre of excellence based in the West Midlands, with national data, expertise, tools, and ways of working to maximise the insights and innovations developed from health data.
PIONEER is an ethically approved, secure research database and analytical environment containing data from the electronic healthcare systems of healthcare organisations who provide unplanned or emergency care. PIONEER data includes symptoms, investigations, diagnoses and treatments, images and insights gained from free text within clinical notes.
Connecting large data sets and providing access responsibly is already improving care for patients: speeding up diagnoses, building better and safer NHS services.
PIONEER in numbers
What is acute care?
Acute care is any unplanned health or care contract, in the community or hospital setting. Unplanned, urgent and emergency healthcare are areas of critical strain for the NHS and healthcare systems globally. Recurrent unplanned healthcare use is associated with poverty and poor outcomes. PIONEER works to improve the health of patients and the effectiveness of health systems through research.
How we keep your Data safe: ‘The Five Safes’ Model
to ensure privacy using the ‘Five Safes’ model.
Safe Data
We assess the risk that a person could be identified from the data and minimise this so that privacy is protected.
Safe Projects
We ensure the requested use of the data is appropriate, that it won’t discriminate against any groups of citizens and that the knowledge gained from the data will lead to public good.
Safe People
We review who the data requestors are, and undertake a due diligence assessment, to check that the researchers can be trusted to use the data appropriately.
Safe Settings
We build Trusted Research Environments for data analysis. These secure environments have been cybersecurity tested and meet specific international ISO standards, meaning we control who accesses the data and what they do with it.
Safe Outputs
We examine all outputs from data analysis and ensure that the results can not cause any individual to be identified.
Your data could save lives
National Data Opt out (the choices you have)
You can choose to stop your patient information being used for research and planning. The option to opt out applies to anyone over the age of 13 who lives in England. If you live elsewhere in the UK, your data may be handled differently. Further information is available on the NHS website.
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