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

The Data for R&D programme (£175m, 2022/23-2024/25) built the national SDE and eleven regional sub-national SDEs; that funding period has ended and continuation is piecemeal: Cancer Research UK and others publicly called for sustained funding beyond 2025. HDRS (up to £600m; first services end-2026) has leadership but no statutory basis, while NHS England, legal custodian of the national collections, is being dissolved into DHSC, leaving data functions in transit.

Funding cliffs plus institutional churn risk repeating the UK pattern of building then abandoning health-data infrastructure (care.data, GPDPR, now SDEs). Regional SDE teams disperse quickly once grants lapse; researchers and industry will not commit 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; the next major data or health bill is the legislative slot.

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

Secure-data-environment funding has lapsed and NHS England's data functions sit mid-transfer, so regional teams disperse and industry withholds commitment while HDRS still lacks statutory footing.