iCARE

Unlocking the potential of health data, safely and responsibly.

iCARE operates the Imperial Secure Data Environment (SDE), a secure cloud-based platform that enables approved researchers, clinicians and analysts to access and analyse de-identified health data for specific, governed projects. 

Researchers access data securely within the SDE, allowing analysis to take place without data leaving the secured environment. This model protects patient confidentiality while enabling high-quality research, analytics, and service improvement. 

The iCARE team curates, links, and maintains the data resources that underpin the Imperial SDE, creating research-ready datasets and continuously improving the platform to support innovation at scale.  

The Imperial SDE contains a large-scale collection of routinely collected healthcare data from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s five hospitals, capturing more than 1.5 million patient encounters each year. The data spans clinical care, research and wider population-level information, enabling researchers to investigate health outcomes and care pathways at scale. 

Through collaboration with Whole Systems Integrated Care (WSIC), the Imperial SDE also enables approved research using linkable health and care datasets covering approximately 2.8 million people across North West London. This provides additional context across primary, community and hospital care, enabling a more complete understanding of patient pathways and outcomes over time. 

Transforming health data into evidence that improves patient care.

iCARE is a leader in translational research and innovation in health data. We conduct our own research, working at the intersection of clinical practice, data science and analytics to generate new evidence and translate it into real-world solutions for NHS services. 

Our work spans the full pathway from study design and development through to evaluation, ensuring innovations are rigorously tested, evidence-based, clinically relevant and ready for deployment. 

Every project is clinically sponsored and grounded in real patient, service and organisational priorities, ensuring outputs are both meaningful and actionable. 

This approach supports the NHS 10-Year Health Plan by enabling more proactive, preventative and digitally enabled care, improving decision-making and supporting the shift from hospital-based to community-focused services. 

Connecting people, data and technology to create real-world impact.

iCARE is a collaborative hub that brings together clinicians, researchers, NHS organisations, academics and industry partners. 

Complex health challenges require cross-disciplinary collaboration. iCARE provides the secure environment, governance and expertise needed to support partnership working that would not be possible within a single organisation.  

By acting as the connective tissue between data, technology and people, iCARE enables ideas to be translated into evidence and evidence into real-world impact.