New data strategy for England: Scotland provides an exemplar for achieving public trust

Wise emphasises that the new data strategy for England aims to rebuild public trust partly through the creation of trusted research environments.1 Integrating health with other data domains such as social care is also important. The Scottish Health and Ethnicity Linkage Study (SHELS) provides an exemplar of this approach.2In 2002 we designed a method to link anonymously the 2001 Scottish Census to health records, with collaboration between two agencies—National Records of Scotland (NRS, then called the General Register Office for Scotland) and the NHS. We subsequently collaborated with other agencies. The methods have been published.23 The data were linked, held, and analysed in a trusted setting within NRS, accessible only to named researchers with anonymised analytical output being scrutinised by an appropriate external, independent committee before release.3We linked data, including data from the census, mortality records,4 hospital admissions databases,5 infection registers,6 cancer registration,7 bowel and breast cancer screening registers,89 electronic…
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