Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Policy paper: Replacing animals in science: A strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods, published on 11 November 2025, what progress has he made in establishing a Health Data Research Service.

The Health Data Research Service (HDRS) will deliver a single point of access to health data from multiple sources which will bring new treatments and cures to patients by safely enabling the use of patient data to super-charge research.

Over the past year a Department led team, with support from the Office for Life Science and NHS England colleagues, has been working to set up the service.

HDRS is being established as a Government Company, and Dr Melanie Ivarsson has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer and Baroness Nicola Blackwood as Chair. Work is now underway to incorporate and develop the service to ensure it is up and running as quickly as possible to deliver benefits for patients and researchers.

We are committed to the service being operational by December 2026, with new capabilities being progressively rolled out.