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East Midlands Secure Data Environment

The East Midlands Secure Data Environment (SDE) provides secure access to data and a range of services to accelerate research and innovation leading to improved patient care. It is part of NHS England's Data for Research and Development Programme and is a member of the NHS Research Secure Data Environment Network.

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East Midlands SDE is hosted by the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, and our goal is to provide secure access to data and a range of services to accelerate research and innovation leading to improved patient care.

Our SDE covers a wide geographic area spanning a population of over five million people and a diverse array of communities with different health needs. It includes five integrated care systems covering:

  • Derby and Derbyshire
  • Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
  • Lincolnshire
  • Northamptonshire
  • Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Due to our network of hospitals, other health and social care providers and strong links with academic institutions across the region, we are experienced in working with health and social care data to make a positive impact on improving front-line NHS healthcare services via research.

Key features
  • Secure Ubuntu virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) on a cloud-based platform.
  • Three levels of compute power – standard, enhanced and GPU-enhanced.
  • Python and R statistical language plus other tools suggested as part of Turing Model Toolkit.
  • Platform as a Service database by request.
  • Provision of published datasets located within own dedicated, secure workspace.

Platform services

A secure workspace standard package will be implemented for each project. The package includes a cloud-based, secure VDI providing access to an instance of the platform, a suite of included tools, and support capabilities.

Technical summary

Standard package: Azure D-Series Base VM 4 vCPU | 16GB RAM | 500GB SSD | Ubuntu.

Enhanced package: Azure D-Series Base VM 16 vCPU | 64GB RAM | 500GB SSD | Ubuntu.

GPU-enhanced package: Azure NV-Series Base VM 18 vCPU | 220GB RAM | 1TB 5000 IOPS - 200MB/s premium storage | NVIDIA A10 GPUs and AMD EPYC 74F3V(Milan) CPUs with a base frequency of 3.2 GHz - all-cores peak frequency of 4.0 GHz | Ubuntu

Included tools

Python, R, Guile, Rust and other languages and package managers 

PyCharm, RStudio, VSCodium and other editors

HedgeDoc markdown editor, LaTEx/pdflatex/xelatex for technical writing, and LibreOffice

CRAN and PyPI Repos

Optional tools

(May incur additional service charges)

Platform as a Service Database

Consultancy services

We offer a range of consultancy services to support research projects. These include:

  • project management
  • general enquiry
  • feasibility request
  • research feasibility
  • information governance consultancy service 
  • Data Access Request (DAR) Form support
  • amendment/renewal/extension of a Data Access Request (DAR)

Data services

We can provide curated published datasets from: 

  • secondary care

In addition to curated datasets, we also offer:

  • data refreshes
  • secure data egress for projects

A full list of available datasets is published on the HDR UK Health Data Gateway. Those specific to the East Midlands SDE can be found by filtering the 'Data Custodian', in the left margin, by East Midlands Secure Data Environment (SDE).

Contact details

To find out more about East Midlands SDE:

Last edited: 16 April 2025 4:44 pm