Data-linking initiative to save lives on roads included in Government strategy

A pioneering data registry linking data on road collisions and healthcare is part of a new national road safety strategy.

The Pre-hospital Research and Audit Network (PRANA) is delivered by a growing team led in University Hospital Southampton (UHS).

It aims to save lives by connecting data. These new insights can inform improvements in patient care and support disease prevention.

The national registry is based within the Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE).

PRANA has been highlighted in the Department for Transport’s (DfT) newly launched National Road Safety Strategy. This commits to securely link police-recorded road collision data with healthcare data.

The registry’ chief investigator is Dr Phil Hyde. He is a Paediatric Intensive Care Consultant at UHS and a Pre-hospital Consultant for Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

He has been supported by the UHS Research Leaders Programme.

What is PRANA?

PRANA means ‘life force’ in Sanskrit. It is pulling together information about patients’ entire care pathways for life-threatening illnesses and life-threatening injuries. These range from heart attacks and sepsis, to industrial accidents and road traffic collisions.

An important part of PRANA is combining understanding of what happens from the moment a person is injured on a road to the care they receive through hospital. 

It links data from ambulances, air ambulances, police, the DfT and coroners. It connects all of this with hospital data.

All data is kept secure within the Wessex SDE. This enables secure and ethical data linkage. It also allows the data to be analysed for research.

The registry is already helping to show how linking datasets can generate insights that are not otherwise possible.

PRANA is supported by the UHS Southampton Emerging Therapies and Technologies Centre and the University of Southampton Clinical Informatics Research Unit.

It is being driven forward by a team of data and communication specialists, public, patients, clinicians, engineers and other scientists.

It has benefitted from seed funding from The Road Safety Trust, Wessex Health Partners, the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, the NIHR Wessex Experimental Medicine Network and NHS England Data for Research and Development.

Leading the pilot

The national strategy has identified PRANA as the framework through which an initial pilot phase will take place. This will help to optimise data-matching and establish a foundational linked dataset.

The pilot will support future national expansion of the data system. This includes improving understanding of injury severity and the circumstances that lead to the most serious harm. It will also assess the wider impact of road traffic collisions on NHS services and patients.

Inclusion in the strategy provides a strong foundation for PRANA’s next phase of development. It will also help to ensure that research insights translate into real-world safety improvements.

Dr Hyde said: “Being included in the National Road Safety Strategy is a big step forward for PRANA. It shows our commitment to working with partners across different sectors to reduce serious injuries on our roads and support the NHS.

We’re excited to keep building this work together, and we’re truly grateful to everyone who has contributed their time and expertise to get us this far.”