NHS Secure Data Environment

The Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE) is a sub-national platform that lets approved researchers use NHS health data to improve care. Led by University Hospital Southampton and spanning the region’s Academic Health Science Network, care systems, trusts, and universities, the programme consults patients and the public about how their data is handled. We helped to explain how their data is gathered, linked, protected, and used, giving them a clear, trustworthy basis for an informed choice about its future. Engagement was led by Opyn Consulting, grounded in Professor Anna Feigenbaum’s research at Bournemouth University.

We created a digital storytelling toolkit for the SDE, capable of communicating complex ideas such as linked data and pseudonymisation in open, inclusive public conversations. We aligned all creative assets with the NHS brand, so patients would recognise them as coming from an official, trusted source. Giving the SDE logo more meaning, we transformed it into a working device that shows data flowing into the environment and benefits flowing out. We designed a series of animated datagraphics that adapt to communicate simple and challenging health care narratives. Each one begins with ‘you’, the patient, and ends with the benefit of sharing data, while the same system sets out concerns and risks, so the story remains personal and balanced. To make the hardest concepts approachable, we gave the data shapes simple faces and speech bubbles, turning abstract information into characters that voice and answer questions raised during public engagement.

The toolkit we developed with Professor Feigenbaum is a complete, reusable system, supported by application guidelines, an asset pack, example use case studies, and glossary cards covering data security, pseudonymisation, and linked data. The parts combine to form a comprehensive approach to SDE communication that other regions can adopt.