New report published on pandemic preparedness

The report, ‘Pandemic Ready: Safeguarding Our Future Through Preparedness’, identifies recommendations aimed at strengthening Scotland against future pandemics. RDS will lead or contribute to several recommendations under the heading ‘identifying and securing the effective use of data for pandemics’, improving Scotland’s data for research systems and enabling faster, simpler data access for researchers.

RDS’s primary involvement in pandemic preparedness is identified in recommendation 3B of the report, which advises that ‘a single, standardised data access and approvals process be implemented for Scotland. This should cover all controllers of data generated through health and care service delivery and publicly funded research activity’.

The recommendation supports the continuation of RDS’s existing work to improve data access in Scotland, including the Researcher Access Service. Initially launched in April 2024, the Researcher Access Service is a fully digitised, faster, and more efficient pathway for research projects to use Scottish public sector data for research in the public benefit. At launch, accredited researchers can apply to access nine of Public Health Scotland’s (PHS) most frequently requested datasets through the service, in areas such as deaths, births, prescriptions, accident and emergency and others. The service streamlines the approvals process for these datasets, enabling researchers to access data more quickly and generate insights that can help inform policy decisions in a timely manner.

Supported by the report’s recommendations, RDS will continue to develop the service and work with eDRIS (electronic Data Research and Innovation Service) at PHS and other partner organisations to broaden the range of datasets available.

On publication of the report, Professor Roger Halliday, Chief Executive Officer at RDS, said; “I am pleased to see the publication of the pandemic preparedness report and welcome its endorsement of RDS’s role in improving Scotland’s data for research systems.

“Scotland has a rich and wide-ranging wealth of data about people, places and businesses, but too often, valuable datasets are tucked away in different organisations and not in a format that makes access or integration easy. It is vital that this data is made available for timely research to inform how we respond to societal challenges – both during and outside of pandemics.

“Since RDS was established in 2021, we have made significant progress towards a consistent, streamlined data access system in Scotland. We are excited to continue to lead improvements to Scotland’s data landscape, develop the Researcher Access Service and our other workstreams, and enable more research that can save time, money, and lives.”

Professor Halliday has written a blog post providing his wider thoughts on the publication of the report and RDS’s role in pandemic preparedness. Read the blog post.

Alongside recommendation 3B, RDS will be involved in several other areas of work identified in the report. The report also recommends that:

• ‘the SG [Scottish Government], following public engagement, implement a notice to notify healthcare organisations, general practices (GPs), local authorities and arm’s length bodies that they should share information with PHS and Research Data Scotland (RDS) to support efforts against future pandemics’
• ‘that RDS is supported as the national research data service to enable all publicly funded health data research projects relevant to pandemics to make their data and code available for re-use via secure data environments. These should have access decisions managed through the single streamlined process outlined above’
• ‘the Partnership leads work with partners to produce a pandemic data and intelligence strategy which identifies priority datasets, including from the behavioural sciences, for future pandemic response and which includes a readiness assessment of their usability’

RDS is keen to deliver on these recommendations over the coming months and years.

Learn more about RDS’s current work and our impact to date.

In March 2023, the Scottish Government Chief Scientific Advisor for Health, Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak, asked RDS to lead a review of approval processes for access to data for pandemics as a contribution to the Scottish Government’s report on pandemic preparedness. Click here to read RDS’s report.