Your Data and Research
How your data is used
Using data in Research
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust cares for thousands of patients a year which generates a large amount of information such as blood results, scans and treatment information. This information together with WWL’s electronic healthcare systems is an incredible resource for researchers looking at diseases and how to treat them. If this information can be linked up and combined, researchers and clinicians can look for patterns in the data, helping them to develop new ways of predicting, diagnosing and treating illness.
WWL works in close partnership with other organisations to conduct research. Staff from WWL and other organisations carrying out the research will handle data from the electronic healthcare records. The data used in research is often anonymised by removing names, addresses and dates of birth, and sharing only numbers and statistics.
When you agree to take part in a research study, we will use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse the research study. Your rights to access, change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. If you withdraw from the study, we will keep the information about you that we have already obtained. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally identifiable information possible.
Further guidance for using patient data in research can be found on the Health Research Authority website following the link provided.
Guidance for using patient data - Health Research Authority (hra.nhs.uk)
Health and care research should serve the public interest, which means that we have to demonstrate that our research serves the interests of society as a whole. We do this by following the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research.
You can also find out more about how we use your information by contacting our Research Governance Department.
Tel: 0300 707 8229 or via e-mail: ResearchAdmin@wwl.nhs.uk