3 Nations Readiness Assessment¶
The HDRL Framework was developed for an independent assessment of the potential readiness of health data research services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to participate in the emerging UK Health Data Research Service (HDRS).
The project was commissioned by Research Data Scotland on behalf of the devolved nations and conducted by OPL Advisory between December 2025 and April 2026. Research Data Scotland owns the intellectual property rights in the commissioned project outputs; OPL Advisory originated and developed the framework and delivered the assessment.
How the framework was applied¶
The assessment combined five evidence streams:
- indicator-level readiness assessments using stakeholder interviews and documentary evidence;
- retrospective and prospective research use-case analysis;
- a workshop in each nation;
- a joint 3 Nations synthesis session; and
- external policy and sector intelligence.
Each nation was offered a structured Right of Reply to correct factual inaccuracies and provide additional evidence. Proposed changes were adjudicated against the same maturity descriptors, with cross-nation calibration used to support consistency.
What the application tested¶
The field application tested whether one framework could:
- assess heterogeneous systems without requiring a single governance or institutional model;
- distinguish documented maturity from unverified capability;
- identify where policy, capacity, evidence or infrastructure was the binding constraint;
- combine indicator scoring with real research delivery scenarios; and
- produce actionable roadmaps rather than a pass/fail audit.
It also reinforced that an overall score is not enough: domain patterns, evidence gaps, capacity and use-case dependencies all matter to readiness.
Historical capability mapping¶
At the start of the assessment in 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care and Wellcome described six intended capabilities or goals for the emerging Health Data Research Service:
- Linked national-scale data
- Consented cohort data
- Multi-modal data
- Trial acceleration
- Single-entry point with secure environments
- Cross-sector linkage
The assessment used the following project-specific indicator subsets to explore those six areas:
| Code | Original capability or goal | Indicators included in the 3 Nations capability assessment |
|---|---|---|
| C1 | Linked national-scale data | A.1.1 Core Dataset Availability; A.2.1 Patient Identifier Infrastructure; A.2.2 Linkage Services; B.1.1 Common Data Model Adoption; B.1.2 Terminology Standards; B.2.1 Quality Framework & Monitoring; E.3.1 Opt-Out Management |
| C2 | Consented cohort data | A.2.2 Linkage Services; A.4.1 Consented Cohort Integration; C.4.3 Consent, Permissions & Restrictions Governance |
| C3 | Multi-modal data | A.4.2 Multi-Modal Data Access; H.2.1 Compute Scalability; H.4.1 ML/AI Platform Capability; H.4.2 Responsible AI Practices |
| C4 | Trial acceleration | A.1.2 Data Currency & Timeliness; D.4.1 Trial Data & Recruitment; H.4.2 Responsible AI Practices |
| C5 | Single-entry point with secure environments | C.2.1 Time-to-Data; C.2.2 Data Access Committee; C.3.1 Mutual Recognition & Standards; H.1.1 SDE Architecture & Standards; H.3.1 Security Certification & Audit; H.3.2 Security Operations |
| C6 | Cross-sector linkage | A.2.1 Patient Identifier Infrastructure; C.3.3 Cross-sector Data Sharing & Linkage Governance |
Historical programme context
This mapping records the proposition available to the project in 2025. It is retained for reproducibility and is not a statement of the capability set that current HDRS leadership will adopt. Future uses of HDRL can define separately versioned contextual indicator sets without changing the core indicators or their maturity descriptors.
Read the indicator classification Read Wellcome's description of the six original goals
Final Report¶
Research Data Scotland published the Final Report on 14 July 2026. It presents the authorised findings from the 3 Nations Readiness Assessment and the roadmap arising from them.
Public reporting boundary
The RDS PDF is the authoritative version of the public report. The accessible HTML and Markdown versions reproduce only its published content; this website does not reproduce the underlying indicator-by-country matrix, detailed evidence records or right-of-reply material.