A paper describing a unique Scottish research resource has been selected as one of the top 10 papers of 2025 by BMJ Health & Care Informatics, highlighting its potential to support earlier disease detection using routinely collected eye images. SCONe is Scotland’s community-acquired retinal image repository - a joint effort between The University of Edinburgh, NHS Lothian and Glasgow Caledonian University. It safeguards images captured by community optometrists across the country within the Public Health Scotland National Safe Haven, supporting research in the public interest.This work builds on the Scottish Government’s commitment to providing free eye tests for everyone, introduced two decades ago. The routinely collected images - gathered before, during and after the development of disease - represent an invaluable source of information about the population’s health. They have the potential to enable earlier disease detection and improve understanding of the rate and pattern of progression. This could help clinicians identify people at greater risk, enabling more timely monitoring and intervention, more personalised guidance, and supporting the development of novel treatments. The work has also been supported and informed by input from the public through a dedicated Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) workstream.At the time of submitting the paper, the SCONe retinal image repository contained around 367,000 images from more than 36,000 patients. It has since grown significantly and is now approximately double that size, with a further large update expected soon.Research into the associations between retinal features and disease, and their potential for prediction, is progressing well, with findings currently being prepared for submission to peer review in the coming months.The team is also working closely with Public Health Scotland and Research Data Scotland to facilitate safe and secure access to an anonymised subset of the repository for external researchers. The SCONe team is delighted that our paper has been recognised by the BMJ as a significant contribution to health and care informatics. This work reflects close collaboration across Usher and the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research, delivering a unique national resource for generating new knowledge in eye, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease.SCONe is the world’s largest primary care-based retinal image repository linked to systemic co-morbidities. It enables advanced data science approaches to model disease prediction in the community, which is key to improving risk reduction and health outcomes. Professor Baljean Dhillon SCONe Chief Investigator and Chair of Clinical Ophthalmology SCONe Research is supported by: Sight Scotland, The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd), The RS Macdonald Charitable Trust, Fight For Sight, NHS Lothian Charity, Chief Scientist Office, LifeArc, Eisai, HDR UK, Research Data Scotland and Action Against AMDCite asTochel C, Bernabeu MO, McTrusty A, Tatham AJ, Pead E, Buckmaster F, et al. SCONe: a community-acquired retinal image repository enabling ocular, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease prediction. BMJ Health & Care Informatics. 2025;32:e101236. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjhci-2024-101236 Further informationSCONe: a community-acquired retinal image repository enabling ocular, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease prediction | BMJ Health & Care InformaticsTop 10 Best Papers | BMJ Health & Care InformaticsSCONe | Clinical Sciences Publication date 23 Mar, 2026
