Organisational attendees

Understanding Patient Data
Information Commissioner’s Office
Royal College of General Practitioners
Association of Medical Research Charities
NHS England
NHS Healthwatch
Patients Association
British Medical Association
National Voices
Office of the National Data Guardian
UNISON
Federated Data Platform (FDP) Programme team

Apologies received

NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board
Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
Royal College of Surgeons
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust
Department of Health and Social Care
NHS Confederation

Open Actions

Meeting notes

Welcome and introductions 

The Chair welcomed all members to the call and noted any apologies.

Introductions of presenters took place, and no conflicts/declarations of interests raised.

Minutes and actions from previous meeting

The group approved the April 2025 minutes. A member of the group advised that the response to their query regarding National data integration tenant data processing agreement was not recorded. FDP Programme team to amend April minutes to reflect.

The Chair took the group through the open actions.

Action: Amendment of April minutes to reflect response provided regarding National data integration tenant data processing agreement query.

FDP Check and Challenge terms of reference

The Chair advised that the revised Terms of reference for the FDP Check and Challenge Group has been circulated to the group which has incorporated feedback provided to date. The Chair asked the group to approve the proposed revised FDP Check and Challenge terms of reference.

The group approved the revised FDP Check and Challenge terms of reference.

NHS Federated Data Platform Programme update

The Director of Data Management and Transformation, NHS England, provided an update of the programme to the group.

As of 21 May a total of 114 acute trusts and 9 non-acute trusts have formally signed up to implement the FDP. A total of 79 trusts are live and in delivery. The programme continues on trajectory which has seen a slight slow down in April and May. This is due to a number of factors including bank holidays which can impact on local organisations. From a system level, the programme continues to support organisations to adopt the FDP in the context of the issuing of the Integrated care board blueprint. Currently, no escalations have been raised on the programme’s ability to meet the set targets for 2025/26.

Work is ongoing to develop FDP products and make them ‘generally available’ this includes a focus on Cancer 360, Shared Patient Tracking List, and System Coordination Centre Products. Development of population health management continues, and the team will review the opportunity to bring this to a future Check and Challenge meeting.

The Chair queried if there was anything in the FDP product pipeline relating to community pharmacy. The topic of medication supply issues had been brought up in a different forum along with the question on whether there is an application for the FDP to support community pharmacies. The Director of Data Management and Transformation, NHS England advised that within the supply chain use case there has been more general work on medicine supplies in acute settings but currently community pharmacy medication supply chain is not in the pipeline.

The FDP Deputy Director, Demand and Delivery, provided an update to the group on the FDP Programme demand and delivery position. An overview of the demand forecast was presented to the group, with 16 trusts being targeted in quarter 1 2025/26. This includes ongoing discussions with trusts to identify expectations of when the trusts could go live with the FDP and this is then built into the forecast plan. Factors affecting the ability for a trust to go live include elements such as Electronic Patient Record (EPR) migration, capacity, availability of products etc.

The FDP Deputy Director, Demand and Delivery recognised that the group have previously queried how the FDP Programme is supporting trusts where the initial 4 FDP products might not be the right fit for them. The high level approach to engaging with trusts not yet on the FDP has included; expanding the product offer to include Local Costings Collection, Cancer360, Shared PTL, Patient Led Validation, AI Assisted Discharge Summary and Diagnostics Imaging Scheduler, expanding the use of automated returns for sitreps and national collections, Further developing the existing product suite, and beginning rolling out the analytical capabilities of the FDP platform.

Action: FDP Programme team to bring an update on the FDP population health management development to a future FDP Check and Challenge meeting.

FDP information governance update

The FDP Head of Information Governance provided the group with further information on the information governance (IG) aspects of the National data integration tenant (NDIT). This was provided as a follow up to the previous FDP Check and Challenge meeting which covered an overview of NDIT which will be the secure national safe haven for data collection, processing, and management for NHS England, including for the processing of identifiable information.

The IG has been done specifically for NDIT and the team expect there to be other data protection impact assessments (DPIAs) carried out for any data coming from NDIT being used. The FDP Head of Information Governance provided an overview of the IG process for national products in the instance that it is identified that a national product would look to process the data from NDIT.

A DPIA for NDIT has been completed. This was fully reviewed by the FDP IG team before moving into the formal approval process. Once the FDP IG Team have reviewed the DPIA, including carrying out risk assessment, the document then went to the FDP Data Governance Group (DGG) for approval (this is a decision making group of which membership is a number of IG professionals across the NHS with an FDP instance). For the NDIT DPIA the FDP IG team also took this through the National Data Guardian (NDG) and Information Commissioners Office (ICO) group of which this review happened in parallel with the DGG review. Once feedback and comments were received from DGG and NDG/ICO, the FDP IG team developed a further iteration for the DGG to approve. The DGG has recently approved the NDIT DPIA and the document is now with the NHS England Information Governance team for approval, which will include the review of the Privacy notice and annex for NDIT to ensure the documentation suite is completed. Once approval is granted from the NHS England IG team, it will be released to the FDP Programme.

The Chair queried whether the DGG membership includes social care data holders. The FDP Head of Information Governance confirmed that this was out of scope currently, with members also required to have an instance of the FDP, but advised that as more data sets are brought into the FDP the DGG membership will be reviewed and amended to reflect appropriate representation. The FDP Head of Information Governance confirmed that, currently, if an integrated care board (ICB) was going to bring social care into an ICB instance the representation on the DGG Group is an ICB representative.

A member of the group asked whether new DPIAs were being created when data moves into NDIT. The FDP Head of Information Governance advised that the NDIT DPIA being discussed today allows data to land in NDIT but if there was an ask to move that data and process it, then an additional DPIA would be required to detail the processing of the data. This would be the case if an FDP product wanted to process NDIT data, a DPIA would be required to be developed and approved. The member of the group advised that the question regarding the requirement of new DPIAs was raised at the last meeting, but the response was not recorded in the minutes. The FDP Head of Information Governance re confirmed that the NDIT DPIA outlines which data is landing in NDIT, but any new data sets would require the DPIA to be updated.

FDP Outpatient product demo

The FDP Deputy Director, Product Development and Implementation, provided a high level update on product development followed by a demonstration of the FDP Outpatient product.

Products are split into local delivery products and national focus products. In regards to local products, the FDP has 4 core products (Inpatients, Outpatients, Referral to Treatment Validation, and OPTICA Discharge Management) which are well embedded and realising benefits. The 4 core products all have an associated roadmap which ensures continued review and improvements are made. In addition to the 4 local core products, the FDP Product Development team are focussing on supporting the movement of several new emerging products through the product framework process. This includes products such as; Cancer 360, System Coordination Centre, Patient Led Validation, and AI Assisted Discharge Summary. As part of local product development, the team have been liaising with trusts and patients to gain insight and feedback on product development and pilots. In terms of wider engagement, the team also engage with stakeholders such as Royal Colleges and National Chief Clinical Information Officer, and are regularly receiving requests for engagement from wider stakeholders.

In terms of national product development, there are 3 products within the ‘build’ phase; GP dashboard (providing integrated care boards with a clear, data driven view of general practice performance), Daily urgent and emergency care (UEC) operational dashboard (providing users with a daily operational view of core UEC metrics within FDP), and the Executive balanced scorecard (providing key performance measured at a national, system, and local level). There is also a focus on transformation which includes the mobilisation of ‘FDP by default’ which looks to move all core reporting into the FDP, data collections product transformation, and the development of analytical workspaces.

The Chair flagged that there are still concerns from places regarding the extent patients are being involved in the evaluation of products such as the Patient Led Validation product and challenged the FDP Programme team on the approach to assessing the impact the tools are having on the patient, for example the quality and impact of discussion between clinician and patient within Patient Led Validation product. The FDP Deputy Director, Demand and Delivery, advised that the process of patient impact assessment will be docking into existing processes trusts have including the consideration and review on communication sensitivities. For organisations that are supporting, piloting, implementing FDP products, it has been recognised as an area of consideration. The FDP Deputy Director, Product Development and Implementation, thanked the Chair for raising this and advised that they would take this away to explore further.

The Chair advised that it would be interesting to know what is driving discussion on the GP dashboard and whether it’s a case of presenting the same data in the same way or differently. The FDP Deputy Director, Product Development and Implementation, advised that the initial focus is on making sure the data required is produced but the FDP does have the functionality to review and further develop the data in the future.

A member of the group asked for clarification on what data is being used for the GP dashboard. The Director of Data Management and Transformation, NHS England, confirmed that it is national publication statistics of which the FDP Head of Information Governance further confirmed that the data within the GP dashboard is all publicly available. The member of the group asked if the GP Dashboard included workforce statistics. The FDP Head of Information Governance advised that there is high level information on workforce statistic in the public domain which is an existing data collection and confirmed that the data in the GP dashboard is not new data. The member of the group raised that this move of data into the FDP will support in identifying areas of data quality improvement.

The FDP Product Development Manager presented a demonstration of the FDP outpatient clinic management and rebooking tool which is the first module of the new FDP Outpatient product offering and its piloting is due to go live in July 2025. The Outpatient clinic management and room booking tool allows users to view upcoming outpatient clinic sessions linked to room availability which supports trusts in addressing issues raised in the availability of room booking systems and the ability for them to integrate with patient administration systems (PAS systems). The tool has been designed with pilot sites to improve efficiency and collaboration of clinic room management with the aim for this to enable an increase in clinic and room utilisation which can contribute to the reduction in waiting list.

The Chair advised that the solution described so far seems to focus on the ability to identify and improve underutilised clinics but the Chair outlined the importance of including wider focus areas that this tool can provide such as the ability to see wider issues that are impacting on utilisation such as the day and location of the clinic.

A member of the group challenged whether the FDP Product team will be looking further into the user interface element of the tool and noted that the current version of the tool demonstrated today could be perceived as outdated when compared to other commercial user interface aesthetics. The member of the group challenged whether there is a plan to take advantage of the product development position to review this and move away from previous formatting and interface structures. The member of group advised that this was more than branding and colours schemes but more the fundamental user interface architecture.

The FDP Deputy Director, Product Development and Implementation, thanked the member of the group for their observation and feedback. The Product team is looking into how FDP products can have a standardised user interface/look but with a balance between public sector guidelines and using interface development tools such as ‘React’ which is used by commercial companies to develop new interface structures and aesthetics. The Product team are ensuring that the interface and aesthetic of a product is a core principle in the product development framework.

The FDP Deputy Director, Demand and Delivery, reflected on the interesting point and suggested that there may be a ‘middle ground’ or process to go through which takes into consideration the interface/aesthetic required at the point of adoption to support change management processes whilst having the ability to then layer more sophisticated interface/aesthetics over time.

The Chair and Group thanked the team for the demonstration.

Any other business and close

A member of the group advised that the upcoming British Medical Association Annual General meeting was due to take place on Monday 23 June in which the agenda included a notion flagging concerns regarding the NHS FDP Contract Award.