Coda Network Seminars
A key part of the work of Coda is sharing knowledge and best practice around health data identification, collection and use. Our six-weekly seminars are central to this. They are intended to be open and flexible, and anyone can join us. They are intended to fit as much as possible with your other commitments, taking place at 12noon and lasting no more than an hour.
Notes from previous sessions and details of forthcoming sessions are given below.
If you want to join us as a participant, or want to talk about projects and programmes you’ve been involved in, contact us at info@easternarc.ac.uk
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TBC
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The Kent Marmot Coastal Region Programme is a proactive approach to health inequalities using the Marmot Principles and resulting in a long-term plan for sustained change in coastal areas in Kent.
King’s Lynn and West Norfolk has become a similar ‘Marmot Place’, adopting eight evidence-based principles to reduce health inequalities, developed by Sir Michael Marmot and his team from the University College London’s Institute of Health Equity (IHE).
This session looked at what it means to be a ‘Marmot Place’, and assessed the current work being undertaken in Norfolk and Kent.
A recording of the session is available below, or via the link here.
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Jon Bashford, Research Director at Breaking Barriers Innovations (BBI), gave an overview of the Coastal Navigators Network (CNN), which was established as a strategic collaboration between NHSE and six Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). It responds to the challenges of poor health and economic inactivity by tackling the social determinants of health through scalable, high-impact solutions.CNN built on the Turning the Tide project, which in turn was triggered by the CMO’s annual report 2021 that looked at the health of coastal communities. It wanted to look at wider socioeconomic factors underlying poor health, and in particular employment.It deliberately didn’t group the coast with rural areas, which other networks and research had done, as it recognised the specific issues facing the coast, such as the ‘half compass’ effect. This has a significant impact on employment, and there is often a lack of significant employers and work-ready employees along the coast, with many working-age adults suffering from poor health and disability.Turning the Tide had looked at 55 priority coastal communities with high deprivation, identified by relatively high population density and unemployment. It calculated that 46% of the population were economically inactive, with higher rates of long-term sickness than elsewhere in the country (over 50%).In addition, coastal communities had many similar issues to large inland cities, such as drug use and crime, but weren’t able to access the same levels of help to address them.Although the value of interventions to address wider determinants of ill health, it was difficult for local authorities or ICBs to prioritise them as the value was often long-term and not immediate.JB gave two case studies, in Felixstowe and Thanet, which had identified specific issues, such as the significant suicide rate in Thanet, which was the third highest nationally, particularly in males over 50, with an estimated economic impact of this calculated as £22m.CNN intended to galvanise and focus efforts to address these issues. It had quickly gained a national profile, initially focussed on six key areas (primarily in the Eastern Arc area), and now widening out to 16 across England.It had mapped a number of common issues (as well as employment, these included a fragmented system, transport and connectivity), and had identified six broad areas of focus: prevention, mental health, infrastructure and transport, care tech and health ageing, inclusive employment and career pathways, and service transformation.It had also widened out the partners involved beyond the ICBs and NHS England, and recognised the need to work at a grassroots level with people in the community. The CNN would continue to develop, and members of Coda were encouraged to get in touch with BBI for updates and details of ways in which they could engage to shape its work going forward.
Further info
Slides from the event are available here (pptx).Speaker biography
Jon Bashford is the Research Director at BBI and Senior Visiting Policy Fellow with the Queen Mary Global Policy Institute, Queen Mary University London.He comes from a practitioner background as a Registered Mental Nurse, and has over 30 years experience working in health, social care and education in the public, independent and voluntary sectors.Previously, Jon was Associate Head at the International School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion (University of Central Lancashire) where he managed a wide range of projects, programmes and consultancies at regional, national and international levels, including being part of the project team for the national Prison Drug Treatment Strategy Review Group. He has also been a non-executive director of Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. -
Dr Emily Murray, the Director of the Essex Centre for Coastal Communities, has recently completed and published findings from a research project on the mental health of young adults in coastal communities, compared to their peers inland. It had used the UK Household Longitudinal Study with follow up interviews.
The results showed that there was a significant difference between the two, with a lower mental functioning on the coast.
This session considered possible environmental reasons for this, including economic (such as employment and housing), social (such as crime), education and infrastructure. In almost all measures the indicators were worse for those living by the coast, other than access to green space and air quality.
Resources from the session
Summary of the talk
Topic: Mental health of young people in coastal communities
Background:
- Reports by Chris Whitty and others show coastal communities often experience some of the worst health and well-being outcomes in England.
- This is surprising since research suggests coastal living and access to “blue space” can benefit mental health.
- Coastal decline (loss of industry, ageing populations, outmigration of young people, poor housing, isolation) has created complex social and economic challenges.
Research focus:
- Longitudinal study using Understanding Society survey data: tracked young people (10–15) in coastal vs inland areas for 12 years.
- Key question: Do adolescents in coastal communities have worse mental health in adulthood?
Findings:
- Not all coastal communities are affected — the poorest coastal areas stand out.
- Adolescents in the most deprived coastal communities show:
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- Lower mental functioning scores
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- Higher psychological distress
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- More limiting long-term illness or disability
- Gaps are significant compared to equally deprived inland areas.
- Environmental data showed coastal communities generally worse on economic activity, education, and crime.
- Two strongest predictors of youth mental health: local crime rates and higher education participation.
Services and diagnosis:
- Follow-up research found young adults in deprived coastal areas more likely to have undiagnosed mental distress.
- In contrast, older adults in coastal areas are more likely to be diagnosed when distressed.
- Suggests young people face both higher distress and lower access to diagnosis/treatment.
Explanations discussed:
- Likely linked to poverty, unstable housing (private renting), lack of youth spaces, limited educational and job opportunities.
- Not fully explained by environment or service access alone — more research needed.
Policy implications:
- Targeted investment in youth mental health services and diagnostic access in deprived coastal communities.
- Address root causes: poverty, lack of education/work opportunities, high crime.
- Direct resources (e.g., proposed “Young Futures Hubs”) towards deprived coastal areas.
- Need for better national data on youth mental health at small-area levels.
Conclusion:
Young people in deprived coastal communities face a “double disadvantage”: poorer mental health outcomes and lower likelihood of diagnosis. Tackling economic, social, and service inequalities is essential. -
In May 2025 Norfolk and Waveney ICB hosted a one-day workshop to hear from regional stakeholders who collect, collate, analyse and use data for public health in order to understand and learn from the challenges they face and the opportunities they have created.
This session will hear about the session, and assess what worked, as well as anything they would do differently. As such, it is intended to help those who are seeking to train colleagues in their regions. It will also hear from some speakers who took part, outlining ‘data-driven interventions to improve population outcomes.’
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Dr Liz Ford (Associate Professor in Health Data Science, Brighton and Sussex Medical School) and Magali Ruffier (Senior Programme Delivery Manager (Health Informatics), Health Innovation East) gave an overview of the background to, develop of and future for the NHS Secure Data Environments (SDEs).
Background
In 1987 the Valued-Added Medical Products (VAMP) Research Databank was created to hold GP electronic patient records. This developed into the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) in 1994. Although beneficial to epidemiological research, only around 8% of GP practices contributed to them.
In 2012 the Health and Social Care Act was passed, leading to the establishment of the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), which established care.data. This was intended to centralise patient data from all GP and hospital records to improve healthcare delivery.
However, following negative feedback, it was postponed in 2014 and eventually scrapped. In 2021 its successor, GP Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR), was launched, but this suffered a similar fate, being postponed and later scrapped in the same year.
Since 2022 a framework for data collection has been established, starting with a £200m investment in 2022, followed by the Goldacre Review, the Data Saves Lives Strategy, and the UK Science and Technology Framework.
The resulting NHS England Data for R&D programme funded 11 interoperable regional SDEs to provide approved researchers access to data within NHS-controlled spaces, rather than sharing data directly. The SDEs also link with genomic data assets and nationally-curated datasets and trials data.
Current situation
A three-stage process is in place for establishing SDEs.
- Business case and planning: Initial funding to develop 11 sub-national SDEs across England
- Operational network of 11 separate SDEs established: including collaborations on public engagement and outreach.
- Fully federated network of SDEs: to act as a single, NHS-wide, world-leading innovation engine.
Progress is currently at the second stage. The new system allows for:
- A single ‘front door’, with a single application form, with external analysts welcome.
- Data to be held securely by each integrated care board (ICB), to ensure patient privacy and security via local data controllers.
- A federated approach to collaboration and comparative analyses.
The SDE infrastructure could be used for the following:
- Bespoke datasets: Requests for project-specific datasets outside of what is currently available in the SDE, including linkage between NHS & research datasets.
- NHS organisation-level workspace: NHS providers can have their own workspaces within the SDE to conduct their own analysis or safely collaborate with external parties.
- Re-use of existing research datasets: These datasets could be housed within the SDE to allow re-use for other projects (subject to required approvals).
- Cohort discovery across multiple providers: Minimum datasets could be harmonised by mapping to OMOP Common Data Model, allowing querying of counts across sites to build a project cohort for a Data Access Request
- Pull-through of datasets discovered via cohort browser: OMOP and the original datasets could be requested, which are de-identified before being provisioned within researcher workspaces.
- Clinical trial cohort identification: The Cohort Browser could be used to return cohort counts that could be eligible for a clinical trial. The SDE team cannot identify individuals; they will return the same query to the NHS provider for them to re-run and identify the individual patients for further eligibility screening.
Slides and further information
Slides from the talk are available as follows:
- Liz Ford: Kent Medway and Sussex Secure Data Environment
- Magali Ruffier: Introduction to the EoE SDE and SDE network
The webpages for the two SDEs are as follows:
- Kent, Medway and Sussex: www.sussex.ics.nhs.uk/our-work/our-priorities/digital/kent-medway-and-sussex-secure-data-environment-for-research/
- East of England: www.eoe-securedataenvironment.nhs.uk
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Rebecca Allen (Head of Public Health Analytics, Suffolk County Council) outlined the impact that the Covid pandemic had on the work and expectations of SODA, and how it affected the sharing and use of data across Suffolk.
At the start of the pandemic SODA had faced many challenges. There was no local data for Suffolk (which was home to 761,000 people), no effective data sharing in place with Public Health England (PHE) on infectious disease, no clarity from PHE on what our role was, and no experience of the data needed to handle a global pandemic (although they had the technical skills and knowledge). However they did have some innovative local data-sharing arrangements in place, but not systematically across the whole system and not with key partners.
From May 2020 onwards, they started getting access to detailed local data. Individuals had different ‘unique’ identifiers in different datasets, which required complex linking and matching across huge volumes of data, and there was an evolving demand for the data, which led to the development of the ‘CoronaWatch’ system.
Alongside this, SODA was tasked by the Collaborative Communities Board (CCB) to identify individuals and households in Suffolk who may be particularly vulnerable to the impact of the coronavirus either clinically, financially, or socially. This led to the creation of the Vulnerable Persons Dataset.
Over 40 datasets were encrypted before being sent to SODA and uploaded to a secure data warehouse. Suffolk County Council data, UK government data including the Shielding list, and food parcel delivery information were also uploaded.
They linked data on 145,000 individuals in 109,000 households and analysed the depth and width of vulnerability in the population. This was then given to their ‘Home But Not Alone’ Collaboration which used it to make proactive contact with people and families. Over 24k outbound calls were made to vulnerable people, and a specific funding stream to support them.
The experience of the pandemic on data collection and analysis in Suffolk has led to a number of outcomes.
- It clearly identified individuals with both wide and deep vulnerability allowing immediate proactive contact and support
- It helped the whole Suffolk ‘system’ to understand vulnerabilities in its population in new ways, which is now directly influencing resource allocation
- It will help them to mitigate the long term effects of the pandemic, including inequalities
- It made them think much harder about data ethics and put a framework and process in place to support them
RA finished by highlighting some of the common responses to the challenges of data sharing, and possible ways of overcoming these..
Slides from the talk are available here.