Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD)
Research type
Research Database
IRAS ID
231048
Contact name
Francis K. Appiagyei
Contact email
Research summary
Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD)
REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/EM/0148
Date of REC Opinion
6 Jul 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion
Data collection arrangements
OPCRD is a longitudinal, real-world, research database that holds de-identified patient data from over 750 GP practices and 9.7 million patients across the UK. OPCRD provides anonymised patient data to academic and non-academic organisations for ethically approved scientific, medical and public health research. OPCRD also supports the conduct feasibility assessments.
OPCRD holds de-identified data (both coded data and redacted free text) extracted securely from electronic health records of contributing GP practices. This includes routinely recorded data, patient questionnaire data and any data that may be relevant to management of patients in primary care. Primary care data from OPCRD may be linked with other health related datasets such as HES, SMR, PEDW. OPCRD-linked data is referred to as OPCRD-NEXUS. No individual person can be identified from the data collected or held in OPCRD.
Data for OPCRD is gathered from the OPC quality improvement and research support service, established since 2005. OPC is a not-for-profit social enterprise. The service is provided at no cost (free) to GP practices to help them manage and improve care for patients with chronic conditions e.g asthma and COPD. OPC also supports GP practices to conduct research, especially pragmatic trials and implementation studies.
Research programme
OPCRD supports both academic and non-academic researchers and organisations, healthcare providers and commissioners, NHS organisations, government bodies and charitable organisations. OPCRD is available to researchers for conducting robust scientific and medical research in all fields. Data held in OPCRD is representative of routine clinical care and thus enables the study of real-world effectiveness and healthcare utilisation patterns for chronic conditions. The magnitude and diversity of the data affords researchers the required statistical power to conduct longitudinal cohort and case-control studies. The types of research supported by OPCRD include the following areas: • Epidemiology • Pharmacoepidemiology, drug utilisation and drug safety • Public health research including COVID-19 research • Pragmatic trials in primary care including implantation and cluster-randomized trials • Post authorisation safety studies • Medical devices and technology • Research of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic methodologies • Health economics and resource utilisation • Clinical audits and quality improvement OPCRD is governed by the Anonymised Data Ethics and Protocols Transparency committee (ADEPT). All research conducted using anonymised data from OPCRD must gain prior approval from ADEPT. Proceeds from OPCRD data access fees and detailed feasibility assessments are re-invested into OPC services for the continued free provision of patient quality improvement programmes for contributing GP practices.
Research database title
Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD)
Establishment organisation
Optimum Patient Care Limited (OPC)
Establishment organisation address
5 Coles Lane
Cambridge
United Kingdom
CB24 3BA