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Projects

This page lists the projects that form part of our first wave of pilot users for OpenSAFELY.

All projects are reviewed by NHS England to ensure they support relevant research and planning activities in response to the COVID-19 emergency; have a favourable ethical opinion (for research) or appropriate sensor sponsorship (for service evaluation or audit); and all users adhere to the OpenSAFELY ways of working.

The pilot users have also written the summaries of their project below. Their emails are shared if you would like to contact them to understand more about their project.

OpenSAFELY projects numbered 1-155 were approved during the COVID-19 pandemic under legal powers issued by the Secretary of State: Regulation 3(4) of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002 – COPI Regulations.

Under this emergency legal power, the Type 1 Opt-out [archived here] (which a patient can register with their GP surgery to prevent their GP data from being shared outside the GP practice for planning or research purposes) was not required to be upheld for research and planning purposes in the pandemic. Therefore, for projects 1-155 a patient who had registered a Type 1 Opt-out could have had their GP health information used (anonymously) in these projects.

In June 2023, the legal basis for OpenSAFELY’s operation changed [archived here] from the emergency COPI Regulations to the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020. Under this Direction, the Type 1 Opt-out will be upheld for all new projects (after 155).

However, in June 2023, 97 projects were still ongoing, and these projects were given a special transitional arrangement to allow researchers to complete their work, which means the projects may include patient data from individuals with a Type 1 Opt-out. These projects are listed in appendix 3 of the OpenSAFELY Service DPIA [archived here].

As part of the transition to the new legal basis, NHS England consulted many organisations, including representatives of patients, the ICO, the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care, and the BMA and RCGP (see the Data Provision Notice [archived here] for the full list).

Separately, the BMA and RCGP have written to NHS England outlining their support for the OpenSAFELY platform to be extended to all research, service evaluation, clinical audit and health surveillance. Privacy group medConfidential has also stated their support for OpenSAFELY.

See the NHS England OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service privacy notice for more information about the service.

List of archived projects