BREATHE – The Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health welcomes the Oxford Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) as a supporting partner.
As a partner, the Oxford-RCGP RSC will work collaboratively with BREATHE and across the Hub network to drive the use of health data in respiratory research and innovation.
Important source for primary care data
The Oxford-RCGP RSC is an internationally renowned source of information, analysis and interpretation of primary care data.
Established in 1957, the RSC collects and monitors data from over 1700 general practices across England and Wales. Through its weekly upload of pseudonymised data, it is the principal primary care surveillance system across England.
Building on existing links
The new partnership builds on existing links between BREATHE and the Oxford-RCGP RSC.
Professor Aziz Sheikh, BREATHE Director, and Professor Simon de Lusignan, Oxford-RCGP RSC Director, co-lead a study harnessing data to enable a common, near real-time approach to studying COVID-19 vaccine uptake, safety and effectiveness across the UK.
The study builds on work recently undertaken by BREATHE as part of the Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) project.
“Primary care data are a hugely important piece of the puzzle when it comes to respiratory health, and so we are particularly delighted to welcome the Oxford-RCGP RSC as a supporting partner. We look forward to developing our existing links, and working together to drive the use of primary care data for better respiratory health.”
Professor Aziz Sheikh,
Director of BREATHE
“The Oxford-RCGP RSC is one of Europe's oldest surveillance systems, with data collection back to 1957, and involvement in national surveillance since 1967, primarily of respiratory disease and vaccine effectiveness. We feel this collaboration should provide enormous potential for joint research and enhanced surveillance projects.”
Professor Simon de Lusignan,
Director of the Oxford Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC)
“This partnership is great news - the Oxford-RCGP RSC was one of the first members of HDR UK’s Alliance; so it is great to see the relationship extended to work with our Hubs. The RSC datasets are incredibly valuable for research into respiratory disease, as well as other areas of health. Enabling wider access to these datasets is, therefore, another real-world example of our collaborative approach and validates our Hubs model to improve the quality of health data across the UK.”
Ben Gordon,
Executive Director, Hubs and Data Improvement, Health Data Research UK (HDR UK)
More information
Visit the RCGP RSC website
Visit the ORCHID: Oxford-RCGP Clinical Informatics Digital Hub website
Read the BREATHE announcement of the COVID-19 vaccine study
EAVE II study website
