NHS England and GIG Cymru (NHS Wales)/NICOR Data Access Request Service (DARS)

Data access requests

NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales are responsible for the national cardiovascular clinical audits in England and Wales and are negotiating data sharing agreements with NHS Scotland and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland. Our data access request service (DARS) ensures that the data we commission are available for quality improvement, service evaluation, evidence-based decision making and research. Details of the NICOR datasets are available at https://www.nicor.org.uk/national-cardiac-audit-programme/datasets/.

Support for your project

Prior to starting the process of applying for data you should read this page and contact our support team using the following email address: nicor.datarequests@nhs.net

Before submitting an application

Not all enquiries progress to the application stage. It may be that the data you need are available through our existing published data. Please read the following information to see if the data you require are available from another source before proceeding with your application.

Data from the NICOR cardiovascular registries are routinely reported and these reports are available on the NICOR website (https://www.nicor.org.uk).

It is possible that you need additional data for your application. NICOR datasets are aligned to third party data sets such as Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) data which are managed by NHS Digital. However, you may have to apply to NHS Digital for use of these data.

If you have determined that a data access application is still necessary, you should contact the NICOR data access request service before you submit an application and to request the relevant data access request form (nicor.datarequests@nhs.net). The NICOR DARS will advise you if your data requirements can be met and will assist you with your application before you submit it.

Data that can be released

NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales can authorise the release of data for which they are the data controller. Data can be shared for the purposes of quality assurance, quality improvement, service evaluation and research, if certain conditions are met and depending upon permissions being in place for each application.

NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales cannot give permission to share data for which they are not a data controller; this includes where a project has been linked to a dataset controlled by another organisation, such as NHS Digital. It is important that where you would like to access a linked dataset, you discuss this with the NICOR data access request service before you submit an application.

Please be aware that there are currently restrictions on the transfer of both personally identifiable (patient level) data and de-identified (including pseudonymised) data to organisations outside of the UK. This includes some countries within the European Economic Area. NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales cannot currently approve applications that involve the transfer of personal data to an organisation that is geographically based in a country outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) ‘safe list’. Until this decision is revisited, NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales recommend that international organisations partner with a UK institution to ensure that the data and data processing remain within the UK.

Outputs and reports

We are committed to ensuring that, where possible, all data, outputs and publications are made publicly available for the benefit of the public and the NHS.

Applicants for research data are expected to publish any findings or outputs resulting from their analysis of NICOR data. All manuscripts should be provided to NHS England/GIG Cymru at the draft stage to ensure compliance with the DARS process. Applicants should reference that the data used were collected by NICOR on behalf of NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales. The acknowledgement should take this form:

Data have been provided by the National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research with approval from NHS England and GIG Cymru/NHS Wales

To be transparent, we will publish a public register of approved data sharing applications. We will include within this register the lay title and lay summary of your project that you will have provided within your data access request application form.

Special requests

If you wish to access a small amount of anonymous and aggregate information that has not yet been published by the NICOR project, please contact the NICOR data access request service (nicor.datarequests@nhs.net). These requests may not require the completion of a full data access request form.

Reproducing NHS England or GIG Cymru/NHS Wales copyright material

If you do not wish to access data but wish to reproduce tables, text or other information that is included in any NICOR report or output under NHS England or GIG Cymru/NHS Wales copyright, please contact us directly at the NICOR data access service (nicor.datarequests@nhs.net).

Contact us

You can contact the NICOR data access service at: nicor.datarequests@nhs.net