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Manchester Clinical Data Science Unit

Making high-quality healthcare data work for professional and patient benefit

The Manchester Clinical Data Science Unit (CDSU) makes high-quality healthcare data work for professional and patient benefit. We ensure that data is safely and efficiently designed to enable researchers to make the most of this valuable resource in delivering cutting-edge research and innovation.

CDSU is a team of data specialists working in accordance with national and European regulations and legislation to ensure personal healthcare data and information is used safely, securely, and respectfully. Utilising the large amounts of patient data at MFT helps us plan healthcare, to make sure that patients are treated fairly and to discover new trends about health and disease. There is also an opportunity to use this information for research and innovation to make healthcare better in the future.

We collaborate with partners including NHS colleagues, data guardians, academics, regulators, practitioners, members of the public, industry, funders, and policymakers from across MFT, Greater Manchester, nationally, and internationally to improve health and social care through the use of safe and secure data.

Initially established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a secure data environment to support access to Electronic Health Records for research, it has evolved into MFT’s comprehensive virtual centre for the secure handling, processing, and linking of data from multiple sources and the hosting, storage and management of longitudinal data.

CDSU is led by Dr Anthony Wilson, Consultant in anaesthesia and critical care at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and Claire Macdonald, Head of Delivery, supported by a team of data analysts and engineers.

CDSU Values

All programmes and projects conducted by CDSU follow our core values to ensure we make healthcare data work for professional and patient benefit:

Respecting and safeguarding privacy and maintaining trust
Being open and transparent
Taking our responsibilities seriously and acting professionally
Delivering an exemplary experience to our stakeholders
Using our resources efficiently and effectively
Aiming to be a Centre of Excellence and the best at everything we do
CDSU values the role of the NHS and its staff in delivering and utilising high quality health care data for research and innovation

How can CDSU help you?

CDSU offers services for clinicians, researchers, industry, and patients:

Operational Data Science

CDSU uses data science techniques to solve problems and support the strategic decision-making processes to improve MFT services. Using real-time data for daily decisions and advanced analytics to uncover hidden value enables the Trust to improve outcomes and reduce inefficiencies in the health system, including:

Reducing waiting times
Tackling the number of unattended appointments
Reducing clinical waste
Predicting equipment failure
Predicting when a patient’s illness may deteriorate

Research Data

We provide support to researchers who wish to request and make use of data for research and innovation purposes when it is not practicable to obtain consent from individuals.

CDSU technology and processes ensure unconsented healthcare, social data and other types of sensitive data are accessible for research and clinical purposes whilst protecting personal privacy.

CDSU makes accessing datasets easier by providing a single entry point and end-to-end support. Our safe and trusted approach is disease- and technique-agnostic and due to our working partnerships can utilise routine health records, imaging, biobank and genomic data and can work with other public organisations to collaborate on cross-disciplinary projects.

Our dedicated team support Health Data Research UK and other national consortiums, increasing the quality and quantity of research for the public benefit and interest and supporting better policy-making, practice and collective wellbeing.

Research Pillars

CDSU’s research pillars demonstrate areas in which we have a focus, due to MFT, regional or national priorities, but we are not limited to these themes.

Secondary use of data (Devolved REC and DPIA)

CDSU has Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval (REC No. 23/NE/0076) to re-use data collected by MFT for secondary purposes that covers all data projects which comply with the approved Data Privacy Impact Assessment (DPIA) agreement in place.

Clinical Trials Recruitment

Clinical trials recruit people to participate studies assessing the impact or effect of a treatment, technology, or process.

CDSU assists in identifying suitable participants for recruitment into clinical trials and data collection for monitoring and outcomes analysis.

We do this by searching the electronic patient records for information required by the trial. Using the data in this way means the clinical trial does not need to collect this data (as it is already available) and can concentrate on collecting data on factors which are currently unknown, reducing time and effort and thereby making the process of producing new treatments more efficient.

Styles of data access provided for each type of activity

Where a project has already received permissions to have data sent to an external secure environment, this will be shared via a secure, approved process and will be accompanied by a contract and data sharing agreement which has been ratified prior to the project beginning, setting out terms and conditions of what the data may, or may not, be used for and other rules, such as when data must be destroyed.

Projects only using an internal secure environment will have their data made available via MFTs approved processes and in an environment which is available only to those who have permission to work on it.

Data access process

Any deviations from standard data access process (e.g. where there are multiple data controllers)
If a project does not fall under the remit of CDSU devolved approvals for data projects, applicants will need to seek other types of approval (e.g. project-specific REC).

Contact Us

If you are a researcher or healthcare company and would like to find out more about how CDSU can make data work for you, please contact clinicaldata.scienceunit@mft.nhs.uk