Barts research takes a step forward with new feature
Our researchers will soon find it easier to access the anonymised health data they need to carry out important studies into disease, treatment, and patient care.
Barts Health has implemented Anonymise and Export, a tool which makes it simpler and faster to share anonymised diagnostic scans with approved research teams.
Until now, preparing this data for research involved a slow, manual process. The new approach allows imaging data to be transferred securely into a research environment more efficiently, saving NHS teams time and enabling researchers to begin their work more quickly — with privacy safeguards in place at every stage.
This development is part of a larger project known as the Barts Health Data Platform (BHDP), launched in April 2025. The platform brings together different types of health information — such as scans, health records, and lab results — into one secure system that researchers can apply to use.
By doing this, the platform will help researchers explore health conditions in greater depth, study how treatments affect different patients, and potentially identify ways to improve care in the future.
Steven Newhouse, deputy chief information officer for Barts Health NHS Trust, said: “We are now able to provide researchers and clinicians with access to health and imaging data at a scale we’ve not offered before. With robust safeguards in place, this development supports more efficient, secure research and marks meaningful progress in advancing medical innovation and understanding of disease.”
The work is being supported by Sectra and the NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre, and forms part of a wider effort to improve how research data is accessed and used in a responsible, transparent way.
The new capability also makes it easier to link imaging data with other hospital datasets. This allows researchers to better understand how conditions develop and how people respond to treatment, without revealing any patient-identifiable information.
Professor Sir Mark Caulfield, dean of the faculty of medicine at Queen Mary University of London, said: “The NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre are delighted to have enabled this groundbreaking advancement in access to medical imaging for research. This system represents a pivotal moment in our field — a true game-changer that unlocks the potential of big data while steadfastly protecting patient privacy. This is an exhilarating time of transformation, and I am proud to be part of this innovative journey.”
The platform will be hosted in Microsoft’s secure Azure Cloud and will provide dedicated workspaces for each research project. These spaces will support a range of research approaches, including the use of artificial intelligence to identify trends or patterns across larger groups of patients.
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