Inside one of England’s most ambitious health data services

Feyzan Fullerton
Oct 23
4 min read

Graphic illustration of people in a virtual world with access to data and information, with logos from Starlight Consulting, Telefonica Tech and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) partnered with Starlight and Telefónica Tech to deliver the Thames Valley and Surrey (TVS) Secure Data Environment (SDE), a centrally sponsored, trailblazing, regional health data service.

By building clear programme plans, strengthening delivery and shaping nationally recognised governance, Starlight supported OUH to launch a secure data platform that holds billions of health records and safely delivers hundreds of research, improvement and clinical audit projects.

What the client needed

In response to the UK’s Data Saves Lives strategy and the Goldacre Review, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care launched a national programme to create eleven Secure Data Environments across England. These platforms would enable faster, safer and ethical access to health data for research, while ensuring transparency, security and public trust.

OUH was selected to lead the SDE for Thames Valley and Surrey, representing a population of over 4.3 million citizens and working with more than 20 NHS organisations and over 320 GP practices. With a strong reputation for health research and established academic partnerships, OUH had the ambition to deliver a ground-breaking service which went well beyond technical infrastructure.

The TVS SDE team at OUH understood that researchers and analysts need rapid access to real-world data including images such as x-rays and MRI scans, detailed analysis from lab tests and the millions of notes and data points captured as part of day-to-day care in hundreds of electronic patient record and specialist systems. The team also understood that this must be achieved safely and securely, with public trust at the core of how future services are designed and delivered.

However, traditional approaches to accessing health data for purposes beyond direct care can be cumbersome, slow and ineffective. It can take years to access data from across organisations, only to find it’s incomplete or lacks the granular context required for developing new medicines and training artificial intelligence models.

The programme involved developing legal and commercial frameworks, working with the public, engaging diverse stakeholders and preparing for long-term service delivery. Starlight was engaged to help make all this happen.

What Starlight Did

Programme delivery and technical coordination

Starlight began by facilitating the creation of a single, end-to-end programme plan. We worked with senior leaders and delivery teams, facilitating structured workshops to establish coherence across multiple delivery strands and establish a single source of truth for governance, technical and organisational activity.

We provided delivery leadership across the programme and worked with lead technology partner Telefónica Tech to support the design and build of a Microsoft Azure-based platform that integrates with live NHS systems, ingesting real-world and preparing it for customers. We resolved delivery blockers, oversaw risk management and introduced an approach to knowledge transfer that positioned OUH to own and operate the platform independently. Our consultants also led organisational development efforts, including service readiness and the shift from project delivery into a live operational model.

As the programme matured, Starlight provided structure and leadership in response to shifting priorities, such as evolving funding profiles, regulatory updates and changes to user needs. This flexibility enabled OUH to continue progressing at pace without losing strategic direction.

Quote from Professor Jim Davies, University of Oxford: " Starlight have been invaluable in building consensus and accelerating delivery. They have brought fantastic experience and capability to the team."

Stakeholder engagement and governance development

The TVS SDE team faced the challenge of aligning stakeholders from acute, mental health and ambulance services alongside GPs. Each organisation and sector has unique traits, levels of digital maturity, risk tolerance, and research involvement. Starlight led the development of a comprehensive operating model and a suite of onboarding and legal materials that gave partners clarity and confidence and supported the engagement at scale. These artefacts were not only successful locally but have since been recognised as national best practice.

We led the engagement with NHS partners, guiding organisations from awareness through to approval and onboarding. We supported legal negotiations, information governance reviews and created a repeatable process for secure data integration. Starlight’s work helped OUH move from concept to having implemented real-world data sharing in a safe, trusted way.

Organisational capability and service readiness

Delivering the SDE also required OUH to build its internal capability. Starlight provided hands-on leadership to design the organisation’s skills matrix, identify capability gaps and support planning for future recruitment and development.

We supported the programme's transition into a service-ready state. Our team worked closely with the programme leadership on the change, helping define service delivery models and creating key documentation needed to support ongoing service operations.

We also played a central role in preparing the service for ISO 27001:2022 accreditation. This included establishing an information security management system and supporting audit readiness.

Quote from Kerrie Woods, Director R&D Clinical Informatics, Oxford University:
“The partnership we established with Telefónica Tech and Starlight was unique. Each party brought their own expertise and experience to the table, along with a willingness to listen, adapt, and co-create solutions to complex challenges within a changing landscape. Our ways of working and appetite for excellence led to a positive impact on our stakeholders, especially the NHS partners we serve. We delivered world-leading outcomes that would have be impossible to achieve alone.”

Outcomes and Benefits

The Thames Valley and Surrey SDE is now live. It continues to onboard data from across the region and supports the largest research pipeline of any SDE within the SDE Network, with over 250 projects in the pipeline from academia, life sciences and the NHS itself. The platform holds tens of billions of rows of health data, drawn from various care settings across NHS providers. Customers can request access to purpose-specific extracts of this data securely without removing it from the NHS environment. This protects privacy and accelerates research insight.

The programme has achieved:

A complete operating model, onboarding journey and legal framework
A robust, accredited Azure-based data platform built with sustainability in mind
A governance structure and access review process aligned to NHS values and public trust
ISO 27001 readiness and a strengthened security approach
A shift from programme mode to service operations, with highly skilled, trained in-house teams

Feedback from national audits and NHS England reviews has been overwhelmingly positive. OUH has been recognised for its clear governance, technical strength and commitment to ethical research.

Starlight continues to support the programme, helping OUH scale, optimise and sustain the SDE. Our role has been more than consultancy. We have acted as trusted partners, embedded in the team, helping turn national strategy into tangible outcomes for the NHS, researchers and patients.