What this means for trusts and integrated care systems
Every trust, and integrated care board (ICB) (on behalf of integrated care system (ICSs)) will have access to their own instance of the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), which they will have complete control over. It will make it easier for them to collaborate, and coordinate and plan care for patients.
The NHS Federated Data Platform will be a critical operational tool for trusts and ICB’s (on behalf of ICSs) that will:
- Connect siloed systems to support staff to access the information they need in one safe and secure environment.
- Provide better visibility of their data, with more opportunity to query it, and the ability to audit the data to understand how things have been managed in the past to improve lessons learnt.
- Provide the insights needed to understand the current and future needs of their populations so ICSs can tailor early preventative services.
- Enable the effective coordination of care between local health and care organisations and services and reduce the number of long stays in hospital.
- Deliver the capability to develop digital tools that address their most pressing operational challenges and enhance their ability to make informed and effective decisions.
- Enable the effective coordination of care between local health and care organisations and services and reduce the number of long stays in hospital.
- Enable the rapid scaling and sharing of innovative tools and applications that have been developed at a local level – in a secure way – supporting levelling up agenda and reducing variation across England, whilst still retaining local controls for data access.
It will provide health and care providers with information, that they already hold, at their fingertips, while maintaining the highest standards of confidentiality.
Federation means that each trust and ICS has their own instance of the NHS Federated Data Platform, for which they are the data controller. Access for each instance of the FDP will be governed and managed by each individual organisation. Trusts and ICSs are not mandated to adopt an instance of the NHS FDP.
Over 40 pilot sites have been testing products similar to the local products that the NHS FDP will provide. Use of the products has seen pilot sites realise one or more of the following benefits: falls in waiting times, increased theatre utilisation, reduction in discharge delays, and diagnoses speed up. A series of case studies have been published. These products will be the first nationally commissioned local products made available to trust and ICSs on the NHS FDP.