NHS Federated Data Platform – beyond acute

Imagine a healthcare journey that doesn’t reset every time a patient moves from one setting to another. Where information flows seamlessly between hospital wards, community clinics, mental health services, and children’s care – creating a continuous story rather than disconnected chapters.

For too long, our healthcare data has been trapped in silos, creating barriers between the places where patients receive care. While the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) has already transformed acute hospital settings – with nearly 70,000 additional procedures completed and over 1.1 million patient records validated – its potential reaches far beyond hospital walls.

That’s why we’ve launched the Transforming Operational Delivery (TOD) workstream to extend the power of connected data to where patients live, learn, and recover.

Our work and progress to date

We began our expansion with mental health trusts in July 2024, where frontline teams identified crisis care response as a critical challenge.

This led to the development of the Crisis Response product, now entering pilot phase with selected mental health trusts.

The results are promising – reduced referral response times, more patients diverted from emergency departments to appropriate community resources, and increased productivity for mental health staff. In January 2025, we extended our focus to community trusts, working with 9 organisations to identify shared challenges.

Today, our community user forums are co-developing solutions like the waitlist management tool with Cambridge Community Trust, tackling one of the most pressing operational challenges – managing demand and improving access to community services.

By addressing these critical operational issues, this will start to lay the foundations for neighbourhood working outlined in the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, enabling the delivery of the right care, in the right place, at the right time within local communities.

In June 2025, we took the next important step by engaging with children and young people’s services across specialised acute, community, and mental health trusts. This collaborative approach will help us understand the unique challenges faced by teams delivering care to children and young people and explore how the NHS FDP can support them with tailored data solutions.

Our work with children and young people’s services will become an enabler for neighbourhood-based care, ensuring that young people will benefit from connected data systems that support more proactive, coordinated and personalised care within their local communities as envisioned in the NHS 10 Year Health Plan.

In July 2025 we are inviting you to take part in ensuring future tools meet your needs.

Join us in shaping the future

We take an insight-led approach. We don’t start with technology – we start with understanding the operational challenges and pain points faced by professionals in these settings. We identify opportunities where NHS FDP can deliver measurable improvements, whether through existing proven capabilities or entirely new, co-designed solutions.

The power lies in creating seamless patient journeys through connected data that moves with people wherever they receive care. When information flows freely between settings, patients experience more coordinated care, clinicians make better-informed decisions, and the system operates more efficiently.

This is where you come in. We’re looking for representatives from children and young people’s services, community trusts, and mental health trusts to help us create an offering that reflects the unique needs of your patients and practitioners.

By joining our user forums, you’ll:

• help shape NHS FDP tools that address your most pressing pain points
• ensure solutions are tailored to your specific operational challenges
• contribute to transforming service delivery across non-acute settings
• be part of driving the NHS’s shift from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention

Don’t miss this opportunity to influence how data supports care beyond hospital walls. Join our collaborative workshops, participate in user forums, and help co-create solutions that will transform care delivery for your patients.

To express interest in participating, please contact us at england.fdp@nhs.net.

Together, we can create seamless journeys through connected data that moves with patients wherever they receive care – helping to build an NHS truly fit for the future.