Secure Data Environment network lacks a funding settlement and HDRS lacks statutory footing

The Data for R&D programme spent £175m between 2022-23 and 2024-25 building the national Secure Data Environment and eleven regional ones. That funding period has ended and continuation is piecemeal; Cancer Research UK and others have called publicly for sustained funding beyond 2025. HDRS, at up to £600m with first services due at the end of 2026, has leadership and no statutory basis. NHS England, legal custodian of the national collections, is being dissolved into DHSC, which leaves the data functions in transit.

Funding cliffs and institutional churn repeat the pattern of care.data and GPDPR: build health-data infrastructure, then abandon it. Regional teams disperse quickly once grants lapse, and researchers and industry withhold commitment without multi-year certainty.

A five-to-ten-year funding settlement folding the research SDE network into HDRS, and legislation giving HDRS statutory functions with the relevant NHS England data responsibilities formally transferred. DHSC, DSIT and Wellcome are positioned to act, and the next major data or health bill is the slot.

// State-led: Instrument: five-to-ten-year funding settlement plus legislation giving HDRS statutory functions in the next health/data bill.

SDE funding has lapsed and NHS England's data functions sit mid-transfer, so teams disperse and industry holds back while HDRS lacks statutory footing.