About the Data

DataLoch brings together routine data collected as part of people’s day-to-day interactions with health and social care services. These data include the services used, details of visits to hospitals or GPs, treatments, medicines prescribed, as well as outcomes and test results.

These data enable researchers to answer important questions about how the wellbeing of people could be improved. There are many examples of how health data research has delivered insights to help solve challenging health problems, including diagnosing rare diseases, improving the performance and equity of care, identifying diseases early, and assessing the effectiveness of health service.

Overview of the data for research

 

To discover the projects that have used DataLoch-hosted data, visit our Projects Delivered page.

Projects Delivered

Data Security

A close up of a man's hands using a laptop keyboard with a stethoscope next to it.

DataLoch brings together routine data collected as part of people’s day-to-day interactions with health and social care services. NHS Lothian is the lead Data Controller of all data hosted by DataLoch. Protecting the individual identities of all those in the data is the DataLoch team’s most important priority.

Data Security

How to Apply

Doctor holding a stethoscope against a soft toy bear whilst a child looks on and laughs.

As well as service-management requests from the NHS, DataLoch also considers applications from researchers who wish to securely access health and social care data from the South-East Scotland region. Researchers can be from private- and third-sector organisations, as well as from academic or clinical settings. Applicants and applications need to meet a number of key governance criteria to ensure their purposes are legitimate and in the public interest.

How to Apply

How to Access

A close-up of a doctor working in a lab wearing a medical face mask over her mouth, but not her nose.

Once approved, researchers will access de-identified extracts of data for their project through our secure data environment which has been developed in association with Public Health Scotland and hosted by EPCC at the University of Edinburgh. Researchers can access statistical and analytical tools within the environment such as RStudio. The secure platform puts virtual walls around data so that researchers can only access the data extracts for which they have been approved.

How to Access