OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform

The OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and enables life-saving research and analysis. Findings allowed the NHS to understand which groups were at increased risk of the virus, evaluated the effectiveness of vaccines and helped the NHS understand changes in patient care during and after the pandemic.  

NHS England is the data controller for the data within the OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform, and commission the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science - University of Oxford, who developed OpenSAFELY, to provide the OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform. Learn more about how data is collected, used, stored, shared, and protected. 

The OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform is designed to allow analytic work on users own computers without ever having to access the real, sensitive, patient-level data. Researchers and analysts develop their analytical questions in the open. They receive analytical results and undertake analysis within a secure environment within the OpenSAFELY platform, without ever seeing sensitive patient data, ensuring that patient data remains safe and secure at all times. A summary of the projects which have been given approval are published. 

The OpenSAFELY Analytics Platform can be used by users approved by or on behalf of NHS England, such as academics, data analysts, data scientists and researchers. Approved users can run queries on pseudonymised GP and NHS England patient data held by GP IT system suppliers within the GP system suppliers’ secure environments for the purposes approved in the Direction:  

1. Clinical audit (a way to check if healthcare is being provided in line with care standards to help improve the quality of healthcare services). 

2. Service evaluation (to assess how well a healthcare service is achieving its intended aims). 

3. Health surveillance (to better understand the health of the population). 

4. Research, (to find new treatments, improve early diagnosis of disease and prevent ill-health). 

5. Where agreed on a project specific basis by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and the Joint GP IT Committee of the BMA and the RCGP, projects may also be approved for health and social care policy, planning and commissioning purposes and public health purposes. (For example to identify and monitor diseases that pose a risk to the health of population). 

Find out more about how to use the service.