Access to our participants’ GP data

GP data, also called primary care data, give researchers unprecedented insight into conditions that are largely managed by GPs, such as diabetes, dementia and mental ill health.

Combined coded GP data with the existing wealth of genetic, lifestyle, imaging and environmental information on our half a million volunteers will allow researchers to study diseases like dementia, depression, joint pain, and asthma in much greater depth, and earlier in their development when treatment is typically more effective.

Professor Sir Rory Collins, Principal Investigator and CEO, UK Biobank

Compared with purely using hospital inpatient data, GP data allow detection of people with less severe disease at earlier stages in its development. This means researchers can study the full spectrum of disease severity, supporting earlier diagnosis, enabling new drugs and interventions, and enhancing screening programmes. 

The value of GP data became clear during the pandemic, when emergency legislation allowed UK Biobank to make GP data available for the purpose of COVID-19 research.

As a result, there were many scientific studies that investigated the genetic, demographic, lifestyle and clinical factors that increase the risk of severe COVID-19 and its impact on health. For example, researchers looked at brain scans from around 400 UK Biobank participants who had been scanned before and after they contracted COVID-19 to discover even mild COVID-19 infections change the brain.

How we access GP data

All our participants volunteered and consented to make their de-identified health data available to researchers around the world, including their GP patient data. However, until now, there has been no central way to access all the GP patient data in England (unlike in Scotland and Wales).

Adding GP patient data will create a complete picture of the health of every participant. It will widen the scope, and therefore the effectiveness, of research enormously. I feel really excited at seeing what new research will uncover. I was diagnosed as autistic last year – now this information will go into my UK Biobank file so it will be possible for the first time to look at all the possible underlying and contributory factors.

Jane, UK Biobank participant

As of 10 February 2026, the UK Government has published a data provision notice, allowing coded primary care data in England to be shared with consented cohorts like UK Biobank through NHS England, and removing the responsibility and liability from thousands of GPs.

This change will dramatically increase the power of UK Biobank’s dataset to advance the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of conditions handled by GPs. These include arthritis, asthma, dementia, depression, eczema, heart failure and impaired hearing or vision, all of which reduce quality of life, lead to time off work and put significant pressure on the NHS.

How we protect our participants’ privacy

We will collect coded data about health conditions. This includes codes for diagnoses, symptoms, medications, referrals and lab results. Letters and notes of conversations between a participant and their GP will not be shared with UK Biobank.

For example, if a participant visited their GP with bronchitis, the GP will record the code for bronchitis and only this code will be shared with UK Biobank. The notes of the conversation that took place between the patient and their GP will remain confidential.

Read more about our data security and how researchers access the data.